sibonetic

2008-03-10T10:44:00.002Z

WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO CIVIC PRIDE?

After a weekend in the real world, painting out graffiti and launching a Duck platform (pics of this in my next post, when I have got them downloaded!), amongst other things, it is back to cyberspace for a quick post. This is currently the season for announcing council tax rises and the figures are now in. Greenwich has one of the lowest increases in London at 1.96% you might think I would be happy about this, but I’m not.

In order to get to this low figure, if you believe the Council’s spin machine (cost £3.1m), it is all down to ‘efficiency savings’, but when you get down to the bottom line the reality is cuts in Council services, such as £1/2m slashed from the Parks Budget. Now you might think that Parks are a good place to cut if money is tight but I would beg to differ. There used to be a thing called ‘civic pride’, a concept which seems to totally evade Greenwich Council, it is about making the place you call home the best that it can be, and for my money it is the most important thing you can do. It should be any council’s first priority to look after what you have got, it’s boring, it’s mundane, but you mend the roads, pavements and paths, paint the railings, get rid of graffiti and make your parks places local people can be proud of.

Unfortunately Greenwich has lost sight of this truth in a whirlwind of new labour double speak. Only the other day I was invited to the 'Greenwich Open Space Strategy Workshop' In which a highly paid consultancy (Atkins Planning Consultants) was to 'consult' with local groups about the future of parks in Greenwich, yet only days later we discover a £1/2m cut in the budget. What the hell is the point of paying consultants, when your actual strategy is to let things go to rack and ruin.

What is the point of spending £m's rebuilding the Borough's schools for instance, if the kids emerge from them into an unkempt barren decaying wasteland, which they will have no respect for or pride in.
I have long been of the opinion that where a council takes pride in looking after the environment, keeping things in good order in the long run this actually saves money as it reduces graffiti, vandalism etc. People really will start to take pride in where they live.

I think part of the problem in Greenwich is that we live in a one party state, where the ruling Labour group, having been in power for over 40 years, has lost sight of the things that really matter. The local Lib Dems are weak and ineffectual and the Tories are only interested in regaining Eltham at the next General election. Perhaps it is about time that local people who want to make a difference got together and gave this shambolic excuse for a local administration a run for its money at the next council elections in 2010.

2008-03-05T22:58:00.000Z

Lies, damm lies, and targets.

In a few spare moments at lunchtime I had a look at one of my favourite blogs, Charlton Average, who incidentally also posts rather erudite comments on the newsshopper website from time to time. In his most recent post he referred to a practice called ‘managed moves’ which I had never heard of before. Very briefly, it is where a disruptive child is transferred to another school as an alternative to exclusion. One effect of this is that a schools exclusion figures would appear lower. I also read today an article about school league tables and a plea from head teachers not to place two much emphasis on them.

This got me thinking about the use and misuse of statistics and targets. Does all this information actually do any good? When I was choosing my secondary school in the dim and distant past there were no league tables I just had a look round and went with my gut feeling and when I was told no by the Council by Dad went into bat for me, appealed and got me in to the school of my choice. I have to say I always had the up most respect for my Dad for letting me chose the school which suited me best.

Anyway I digress, the head teachers complaint was that just looking at the % of students who got 5 A-C grades would not, on its own tell a parent how good a school is, and they were making a plea for people to take a look at some of the new measures which take into account other variables. To put it simply if school A has lots of academically gifted girls from middle class families, who stay at the school all the way through from year 7 to year 11 and school B has a transient population of boys with a high % of special needs from disadvantaged backgrounds, then it should come as no surprise that School A is higher up the league table. The aim of the somewhat cumbersomely titled Contextual Value Added measure is to try to make the figures more meaningful by looking at the difference the school makes to its pupils from when they arrive to when they leave taking into account things which the school had little or no control.

What the head teachers however failed to mention was the way in which borderline C/D grade students are guided towards easier subjects in year 10, year 11 registers are purged to decrease the size of the cohort and help is targeted at C/D grade students to the exclusion of other pupils in order to inflate the headline 5 A-C’s at GCSE figure and move the school up the league table.

This brings me on to the figures for exclusions now these are a minefield, and probably tell us even less about a school than exam results! For instance does a high rate of exclusion mean a school has a strong head teacher who is determined not to tolerate any disruptive behaviour which stops children learning or is it evidence of the appalling antics of an uncontrollable mass of lunatic youths? Does a low exclusion rate indicate evidence of a well ordered peaceful learning environment or does it show a school so cowed by political correctness and the need to ‘give kids a chance’ that it is failing to deal with unruly pupils.

When you then start to get targets introduced on the level of school exclusions, as happened in the 90’s then all sorts of bizarre and unfair practices start to crop up. The first is that pupils who have no right to be in a classroom with normal children can’t be kicked out because the school would look bad on paper, never mind the fact in reality the school is going down the toilet! When those targets are then also related to different groups within the school it gets even more stupid, you get the situation were let us say a teacher is assaulted by a pupil, if pupil is from group X they will be excluded because that group nationally is less likely to be excluded, whereas if the pupil is from group Y they won’t be because that group has a higher level of exclusion, I have even witnessed the situation where a Head teacher was overjoyed to be excluding a pupil from group X because it then gave her a chance to get rid of someone from group Y, because the % of group Y excluded would not now look so bad for the school.

On the other hand I would not want to return to the 80’s were these things went almost entirely unmonitored, I well remember a Catholic school I worked in at the time, in which the management would actively provoke children that they viewed as difficult to do things that would get them excluded. This was not because they were particularly difficult; just they were a bit more hard work than the rest of the kids because they had more problems. I have to say I found some Catholics rather unchristian.

So I don’t know the answer, yes people should have information about schools, yes it should be in context, but then does it become too complicated to be meaningful? Yes schools should be measured, accountable and set targets, but does that then lead to distortions which render all the information at best meaningless and at worst lead to damaging and unfair consequences?

2008-02-27T22:34:00.002Z

As some of you may have noticed I now sometimes post a blog on the newsshopper website. Sometimes a variation of the blogs here and other times something completely different, as they say. Now the newsshopper website is home to some pretty strange creatures, especially the blogs, maybe I will fit in quite well I hear you say, one such creature seems to spend his whole life on the site and lives in Bexley (as in the area, not the whole London Borough). He spends much of his time insulting people and indeed whole areas he considers beneath him and this got me thinking about what some people in Bexley are actually like and I reproduce for you my blog entry in full. Hope you find it amusing and your comments are, as always, welcome.

'Much mudslinging has occurred recently on the nature of so called ‘horrible areas’ and the inhabitants there of. I do not propose to comment on such areas but I think we should take a look at the characters of some of those slinging the mud.

Bexley is a rather unpleasant and dreary place, in the main inhabited by narrow minded bigots, who are quick to assert their superiority over others, but are rather slow and dim witted when it comes to producing evidence to back up their puerile assertions. In the main they read newspapers like the Daily Mail, if of course they read at all. They do this because it is devoted to reinforcing their narrow minded ‘little Englander’ attitudes and hatred of all things foreign. In the main the inhabitants often have a little more money than average, but all too few of them have had much in the way of higher education. That said, many have passed tests which prove they have an encyclopaedic knowledge of the streets of London.

Their council is well known for its shamefully harsh treatment of the poor and disadvantaged, the aim of this is to ensure that those people who have a lot of money, do not have to part with very much of it in tax, because those in Bexley know that paying your fair share of tax is just not cricket and that it is the less well off who should shoulder the greatest burden of taxation. Not that the council is averse to spending money, indeed they are planning a bright new shinny civic centre to proclaim the glory of Bexley, but have no fear they will fund this proclamation to the world by selling off community facilities in one of the ‘horrible areas’ like Slade Green, to their friends in the building industry.

Their greatest heroine is Margaret Thatcher, whose humble background, together with her ability to marry money makes her a role model; they revel in her greatest quote,
‘There is no such thing as society.’
As they feel it gives them carte blanche to blame the less well off for their predicament and absolves them of any responsibility to help those around them. They applauded when she went on to say that all that mattered was your family, which is why they so much like their local MP Derek Conway, who made sure his family did very well indeed.

They love to buy the same things as other people, but in shops which charge more; this they feel proves how much better they are than poor people. They also love the Queen and the aristocracy, indeed so much so that some of them even pretend that they have been ennobled! Quite why anyone would wish to pretend to be inbred with a limited intellectual capacity as much of the British aristocracy are, is quite beyond me, but each to their own I suppose. However delusion is one of characteristics of the residents of Bexley, many of them do not even know which County they live in, they think they live in the country, in Kent! This is despite the fact that Bexley has been a London Borough for over 40 years.

All in all I think that Bexley, that strange little piece of 30’s infill, surrounded as it is, by far more interesting and exciting neighbouring areas, will continue to be where people go and live in order to wait for death. Bemoaning the world around them until Lucifer finally answers their prayers and takes them to the place where they really deserve to be.'

2008-02-22T12:53:00.006Z

Inappropriate slogan

Spotted this lorry blocking one carriageway of Plumstead Road yesterday as it completed the installation of the new speed camera and I have to say ‘keeping traffic on the move’ did not strike me as the most suitable motto for this particular business, perhaps ‘robbing unwary motorists who bother to tax and insure their cars and have them registered at the correct address and aren’t using cloned number plates’ might be more accurate. This is perhaps a trifle unwieldy; maybe someone else could come up with something pithier. Or indeed, are there other organisations whose slogans are similarly inaccurate?

2008-02-20T19:08:00.003Z

I saw a 16 year old boy dying in the street yesterday, he had been stabbed. He is the fifth London teenager to be murdered this year, and it’s not even the end of February.

I am not going to attempt to explain the knife and gun culture which seems to place so little value on human life, nor am I going to suggest remedies, plenty of other people have been doing that. What I do want to nail on the head is the way that an appalling act of senseless violence is used by some people to blame away all of society’s ills on immigrants.

The first thing to say is that I have no idea where this boy was born, or for that matter where his attackers were from, all I know is that he was dying when I walked past him on my way home from work. So as far as I or anyone else knows immigration has nothing to do with this murder. That inconvenient little fact however does not stop some people from seeing the words black and Plumstead and coming up with the word immigration.

Once the word immigration is mentioned then along comes other derogatory words such as scrounger, criminal etc. So I thought I would have an objective look at immigration, I was told by one person in the comments section of the newsshoppers that ‘the majority of immigrants are only here for the benefits. So I did a bit of research and came across an report from the Institute of Public Policy Research (IPPR) published in September 2007, it made for interesting reading.

Here are a few of the inconvenient truths from the report, if you were born in Ghana, Zimbabwe or Poland you are more likely to be working than if you were born in the UK. If you are from Nigeria, Kenya, India and a whole lot of other places you are likely to be better educated than if you were born in the UK. The average person born in the UK works 36.5 hours a week, someone from Nigeria puts in 38.5 hours, a Ugandan 39.5 and a Pole does 41.5 hours. If you are from Jamaica or Uganda or India you pay more income tax than someone from the UK. If you come from India or Sri Lanka or Ghana you are less likely to be on Income Support than people born here. If you are from Pakistan or Kenya or India you are much less likely to have a council house.

I could go on, the fact is that the majority of immigrants are here to work, are working hard and paying their taxes, the reasons they are here are that 1) They do the jobs that UK citizens don’t want to do like looking after the sick and elderly. 2) They do jobs where there are skills shortages often because some people born in the UK didn’t work hard enough in school. 3) They take jobs because there is a proportion of the population born here that doesn’t want to work and has no intention of doing so the ‘I’m on benefits brigade.'

Now I am all for having a reasoned debate on the costs and benefits of immigration, but what I can’t stand is blaming everything on a group that is different to you. All groups have problems and difficulties, some groups problems may go deeper than others, but rather than mudslinging at others let’s all have a look at our own communities with a critical eye and see what we can do to make them better.

2008-02-19T23:09:00.002Z

PLUMSTEAD COMMON the movie

Let me know what you think

2008-02-19T20:08:00.007Z

Another young man murdered in Plumstead

At about 4 pm today a young man was chased and attacked and stabbed by a gang of youths on the corner of Invermore Place and Walmer Terrace on the Glyndon Estate. the air ambulance arrived at 4.30, but the youth did not make it. I do not have any more information than this, and it would be wrong to jump to conclusions as I do not know all the circumstances. but this is the third young man murdered in the area in the last 9 months, no one is going to tell me that crime is currently under control.

BBC report

2008-02-16T11:24:00.000Z

Hurrah for half term!

Glad to see the kids are getting a break from school, gives them a chance to let off some steam and have a bit of fun. I have heard a few comments bemoaning the up coming holiday but I think the antics of a few anti-social elements amongst today’s youth should not blind us to the positive energy and contribution to society by so many of our young people. What concerns me far more is the hugely negative influence on society and appalling example set by, miserable, scrounging, inconsiderate old people.

Now before anyone jumps down my throat I am not tarring every geriatric with the same brush, some like my Dad who’s 80 have a positive upbeat take on the world, he is still working, trying new things, is not afraid of the modern world, he is a confirmed silver surfer for instance, no it’s the wingers who get my goat. Let me explain.

Take free travel for instance, why do working people have to pay higher fare’s so these scroungers can ride around for nothing, clogging up the buses and trains. Most old people can perfectly well afford to pay, they haven’t got a mortgage to pay, a lot of them don’t even have to pay for a TV licence, and if they don’t have the money it’s because they couldn’t be bothered to make adequate provision for their retirement, so they expect a lifetime of fecklessness and indolence to be rewarded by free travel at the taxpayers expense. I say make them pay; not bothering to work hard and save should have consequences. I well remember as a child when bus passes ran out at 4pm, being elbowed aside by these malingers, for whom any notion of queuing went out the window when faced with the prospect of losing their freebie. We now have the insane idea from our, non driving Ken (aged 62) of letting the over 60’s travel before 9.30 clogging up already heaving public transport with their Zimmer frames and other assorted mobility aids.

Which brings me on to the menace of doddery old buggers shopping on a Saturday, why the hell are they getting in the way of working people with limited free time, when they have all bloody week to shop, its just anti-social behaviour pure and simple. If they can’t show some consideration for others, I say slap them with an ASBO and keep them locked up at home for the weekend. The worst are the ones with the mobility carts, they are usually on them because they have had their driving licences taken away, because they are a danger to the rest of us, often because their eyesight is shot, so what do they go and do, drive round on the pavement, frequently uninsured, I have even seen one talking on their mobile phone! It’s wrong and something should be done!

Then there are the cheats and scroungers who defraud the rest of us, these are the people who hide their savings in order claim things like housing benefit, don’t think just because someone is old it makes them honest, I know of OAP’s up to this not so little scam, they have money squirrelled away in accounts here there and everywhere, buy only declare one account to the council, so suckers like me have to pay their rent. Then there are the middle class home owners gripping about having to sell their home to pay for their nursing care, once society finally gets the chance to get them of the streets. What these selfish gits are saying is that the taxpayer, you and I should shell out hundreds of pounds a week when they can perfectly well afford to pay themselves, where the hell is the dignity or fairness in that? You hear them bleating that they have saved all their life, but that quite frankly is crap, what happened is that their houses rose in value because for years they restricted the building of new homes to protect their own vested interests, pushing up the price, they didn’t work for a penny of it, they took advantage of the less fortunate who didn’t own a home to line their own pockets. So having saddled the younger generation with enormous mortgages they want to push up their taxes as well.

Then there are the moaners, the ones who think everything about the modern world is awful. Who hark back to the days of child labour and rickets as if it was some sort of golden age? Those malcontent's who thing the internet is the work of the devil, condemn every young person as a hoodie chav, complain about every aspect of the modern world and fail to see the good in anything, even as they enjoy their highest ever living standards receive the best ever health care for free, ride around the buses and trains for nothing, even watch TV without paying, unlike the rest of us. They tell you how they worked all their lives and paid for their pension, another lie, their tax went to pay the pensions of a few old people, now there are millions more of them, groaning and grasping for more and more freebies, well I have a message for them, if everything is so bloody awful, do us all a favour and expire now!

2008-02-11T19:34:00.000Z

Is Plumstead a toilet? 3

(but not doing too well in Plumstead)

I had this response to my previous post, from anonymous, ( I wish people would use a name or pseudonym or something as you can end up calling someone Ann for short, which is all very well, but you just might end up getting the gender wrong!) Anyway Ann wrote in response to my previous post..

'Any statistic can be slewed to support any argument.

What I would say in response to the increased reporting of crime in the Plumstead and Glyndon Wards is that the Safer Neighbourhood Teams have invested considerable resources to tackling recidivist offenders with a high local profile.

By doing this they have encouraged residents to come forward and report crimes rather than turn a blind eye or to continue to live in fear.

I think that many people failed to report crimes through fear and intimidation in past years, the Police and especially the Safer Neighbourhoods Teams are working hard to help residents feel safer and more confident about coming forward.

Let’s look at the crime stats in 3 years time when I believe we will see a downturn in reported incidents, not because people are frightened to report crime but because crime has in fact reduced due to effective targeted policing.

I would prefer high crime stats which reflect a new found confidence in the Police rather than low crimes rates because residents are too scared to report incidents.'

Aside from the fact that this sounds very much like it comes straight from the Met's PR Dept. I agree that statistics of reported crime certainly don't tell us the whole story about crime in the area, but they are a better starting point than having no actual evidence at all to put forward a case. I am also aware that evidence from the British Crime Survey are more reliable measures of the levels of crime, but such information is not available for a borough, let alone a ward level.

However I am afraid that your logic is rather flawed, because to follow your argument, this must mean that in most of the rest of London where reported crime has fallen this presumably is because local Safer Neighbourhood Teams have failed to tackle recidivist offenders with a high local profile and therefore local people in those areas are now failing to report crimes through fear and intimidation, hence the fall in recorded crime.

I am afraid that the person has either fallen for the spin coming from the police or is in fact spinning for the police, that any increase in recorded crime can be explained away as evidence that the police are doing a great job in giving us the confidence to report crime and that any fall in recorded crime is down to the police in doing a great job in reducing the level of crime. You just can't have it both ways. I have never met anyone in Plumstead (and I have lived here for 21 years) who is too scared to tell the police that their house has been burgled, yet burglary is up nearly 20%, ditto their car has been broken into, up 15%. Drug offences presumably are not in the main dependant on reporting by victims and they are up by 40%. I presume that the increased reporting of Homicides is also down to our new found confidence in the police, as I expect a few years ago young people were being gunned down all over Plumstead, and that we just didn't bother to mention it to our local bobby on the beat.

An equally plausible case could be made for the increased crime figures not reflecting the true scale of the increase, certainly the last time I reported a crime in Glyndon ward the woeful response by the police would make me hesitate to bother to dial 999 again. This incident took place at 8.30 pm at a bus stop on Plumstead Road. A slightly built middle aged Asian lecturer who was going home after teaching his evening class was viciously attacked by a gang of youths and was left bleeding on the pavement. I phoned the police immediately and on two further occasions, despite the fact that Plumstead police Station is less than 500 metres away not one policeman was able to attend the incident, I was told 'it was a busy night'. No police arrived at all and I had to leave at 10pm having waited in vain for an hour and a half. If the police are unable to deal with assaults on wholly innocent people by gangs of youths how much low level crime must be going unreported?

As for the effectiveness of local safer neighbour teams in influencing the level of crime in the area I think you should take on board this direct quote from the chair of the Glyndon panel of the local SNT;

'The Safer Neighbourhood team (of which I chair the Glyndon Ward panel!) certainly don't frankly seem to make much difference - they are undermanned have no night shifts and are based in Thamesmead and one vehicle shared with another team (oh yes and of course only three of them are actually police officers with powers of arrest . . . oh yes and once any of those three actually make an arrest they are then off the street for several hours)'

All in all, on the balance of probabilities I am afraid to say that the increase in drug offences, which is massive, is probably linked to the rise in gun crime and homicide, the increased number of houses being burgled, cars being broken into and people being robbed. Even the local chair of the SNT in Glyndon thinks that the SNT is making little difference to the situation, because they are inadequately resourced.

So I absolutely stand by my final comment.

'Either the police are inadequately resourced to deal with the problems confronting them or they are failing to manage their resources effectively to bring about the falling crime levels seen in other parts of the capital.'

2008-02-11T11:41:00.000Z

Is Plumstead a 'toilet' 2

(but not doing too well in Plumstead)

Following on some of the discussions as to what Plumstead is like I thought I ought to try and get some facts to go with all the gut feelings out there so to try and get a bit of informed debate going I took a look at the Met's crime figures. The first thing to say is that crime in Plumstead, is about average for London, there are places that are a lot worse, and some that are a lot better. That said, there are some disturbing trends that indicate that unlike London as a whole, crime in Plumstead is getting worse.

Recorded Crime in London fell last year by 6.1%, but Greenwich was one of only 4 Boroughs where crime increased. Information on some crimes can only obtained at a borough wide level, but some of this does not make for comforting reading, the number of Homicides doubled (from 4-8) at least 2 of which were in the Plumstead area (in Barnfield Road and another just off Herbert Road). Motor Venicle crime increased by 15% in Greenwich compared to a 8% fall across London and Gun enabled crime went up by 32.8%, compared to a 11% fall London wide.

When you look at ward Data, although there is a ward called Plumstead it does not cover the whole area, indeed much of Plumstead Common is in fact in Glyndon ward, there are also bits of Plumstead in Shooters Hill and Woolwich Common wards. However I have looked at Plumstead and Glyndon, just to get an idea if there are any trends. What I found out was rather disturbing.

The good news was that there were significant falls in Criminal damage, down 19.4% in Plumstead and 14.9% in Glyndon and smaller falls in Violence against the person of 9.6% in Plumstead and 4% in Glyndon but set against this, there were very large increases last year in some of the crimes which concern people the most. Burglery rose by 19.4% in Plumstead, with a smaller increase in Glyndon. and robbery went up by a whopping 28.7%. Some of these increases may be down to the other significant change and that is the huge increase in Drug offences in the area, up 40.6% in Plumstead and 19.8% in Glyndon.

So it seems that despite all the hoo ha from the Met about safer Neighbour teams and falling levels of crime, they don't seem to be doing too good a job around here. I think we all need to be kicking up more of a fuss. Either the police are inadequately resourced to deal with the problems confronting them or they are failing to manage their resources effectively to bring about the falling crime levels seen in other parts of the capital.

2008-02-09T16:41:00.000Z

Green, Blue CRAP.............everywhere

It's now 3 weeks into the new rubbish collection regime and I have to say that despite the insanely positive spin put on it by the Council, it really isn't working very well. A lot of the problems are not the council's fault, they are down to that small minority of thoughtless, ignorant lazy people who so often cause problems for all of us. Having said that the implementation of the scheme has been done in a shoddy and fairly incompetent way for which the Council should take responsibility, which of course they won't.

The problems in my street started with the fact that their was no information as to when the first fortnightly black bag collection was to start (the information was available on the internet, but not everyone has access to that). This resulted in a load of black bags being put out on the wrong day and lying round in the street for a week, and being ripped open my foxes and the rest of us having to live with the mess for a week.

Another problem is that the Green Bin is far too big for what is being put into it, so unless you have a huge garden, it sits there outside your house like a big green monstrosity with never more than 2 inches of stuff at the bottom, why couldn't the Council supply more sensibly sized bins if they are going to change the waste system?

The problem that people now have is that where do they put the waste that cannot be re-cycled or composted, most of us will, find a way to make sensible arrangements, but the stupid, lazy and ignorant will dump it outside there houses in black bags or worse still fly tip it here there and everywhere. This is already happening.
I don't want to appear too negative though, so I thought I would give you the Sibonetic guide to making the new scheme work. I think I probably watched to much Blue Peter as a child, so here is one I made earlier!

The Kitchen

Place the caddy in a convenient location line with newspaper or a biodegradable bag (obtainable from the council or local stores such as Wilkinson's) and put your food waste in it. Though why we had to have council corporate Green, what about a choice of colours, it really doesn't match the colour scheme in my Kitchen!!

For other kitchen waste have 2 bins one for recycling and the other for anything else! Then all you kitchen waste is pre-sorted ready to go in the right place.

The Living room

Have two bins one for recycling and a little one for the odd bits you can't recycle. This can then also go straight in the correct place when full. The model of the Chocolate Labrador shown in the picture is an optional extra.

Outside

Buy a small black plastic dustbin, this one came from Wilkinsons and cost £8, line it with a Dustbin liner, put your non-recyclables in there and put the bag out on the right day for collection.

Recycling, it's not rocket science!

2008-02-06T16:12:00.000Z

Is Plumstead a toilet?

I notice that this comment over on Plumsteadshire has provoked a bit of a to do;

'In essence, after all, when all is said and done and at the end of the day.....PLUMSTEAD IS JUST A TOILET'

Now while I love the area and feel the comment was a bit over done I have to say that I did come across a bit of evidence to support the assertion. While out clearing the nature reserve and surrounding bits of Plumstead Common of the day to day detritus of everyday Plumstead Life, with our merry band of PCEG volunteers we did come across this dumped on the Common!

2008-02-05T19:14:00.000Z

Shopping

This is a thing I hate, but it's got to be done. So as usual off I trot, well drive, it would be unbearable on foot!! to Morrisons in Thamesmead, with Marcus in tow. Now Marcus has a blue badge due to his mobility difficulties, so one of the few compensations for having to live with MS is that you get to park in disabled bays so it is that little bit less far to walk. The problem though is that Thamesmead is populated with too many of the 'do what I like, and to hell with the rest of society brigade'

Half the cars in the disabled bays have no disabled badge, so they are driven by people who park where they like, to save their poor little, perfectly healthy legs from walking a few extra yards. Then you also have the miracle cure disabled, who leap un-aided from their cars and sprint into the shop to buy their 20 woodbines. These are the ones who are either using a family members badge (without the family member being with them) or have quite simply either stolen one or bought a stolen one down the Pub.

Isn’t it about time we started to make an example of those people who are guilty of genuine anti-social behaviour, I wouldn’t fiddle around with fine’s or clamps, all you need to do is impound the cars and crush them, simple they won’t do it again and for a while at least that’s one less numpty on the Road!

I would start with these 4 I snapped parked without a badge in disabled bay bays the other day.

2008-01-01T19:55:00.000Z

Rockliffe Gardens

Greenwich council describes the Gardens thus:
'These pleasant terraced, ornamental and formal gardens have beautiful water features.'

This is what they mean!

Just made a video of this little local disgrace, I would appreciate any comments

Someone has made off with a nice patio!

Even the trees have graffiti!

As usual, Greenwich Council, which is so good at initiatives, projects and regeneration, is completely crap at looking after what we already have, they seem incapable of maintaining anything.

2007-12-07T10:50:00.000Z

Am going to go along to this tomorrow, will report back anything of interest, its about the next stage of the Love Lane development in Woolwich i.e. the new Tesco's and associated housing.

2007-11-17T11:38:00.001Z

This is what they say about their customer service.

'We handle 80 million items daily and quality of service is always our top priority. Nevertheless, things occasionally go wrong. If you've had a problem with your Royal Mail service, we're sorry and we want to put things right.'

This is what I think of their customer service:

They asked me,

'How can we help?'

This was my reply

You can help by improving your service, which is quite frankly utterly appalling.
I received a card through the door saying an item had a customs charge on it. It stated that I could pay online, however for the third time out of 4 deliveries since this system was introduced the box which is meant to contain the reference no. was left blank. As I don't have £12.50 worth of stamps handy (who does?) I was forced to go to the Royal Mail enquiry office in Woolwich.
As I leave for work before 8 and don't get back until after 1pm. I had to go on a Saturday morning. The office is only open for 4 1/2 hours, (what sort of a business these days has such limited opening hours to offer it's customers?)
I parking on a parking meter and put 25 minutes on it. Unfortunately, as usual, at the busiest time of the week, only one person was working. I queued for 40 minutes to be greeted with a plethora of signs saying that Royal Mail staff are entitled to be treated with respect and should not be abused (which I totally agree with) However if the management of Royal Mail actually delivered a reasonable service then I am sure there would be far less abuse of your employees. By the time I had finally retrieved my package I had incurred a £30 parking fine for overstaying on the meter. So this item has now cost me £42.50 because your employee could not be bothered to write down the reference number and your inadequate opening hours and poor staffing levels delayed me for 40 minutes.
I am not surprised that Royal Mail is losing so much business to other carriers, as they say you reap what you sow.
yours
frustrated and angry

Anyone else want Royal Mail broken up and privatised?

2007-10-26T11:02:00.000+01:00

Political vs. Party Political

Following a couple of comments on my previous blog entry, I think I need to clarify a few things. The reason I deleted the link to David Gold's blog is that rather that being the thoughts and idea's of someone who happens to be the prospective Conservative candidate for Eltham, which was a mixture of his personal views, local items and political comment, instead it had become a purely party political website 'David Gold for Eltham' spouting party political propaganda.

For the record, this is one of the rare occasions I disagree with Hugh as I think if we comment on chavs on busses, young people shooting each other (my next blog entry), the state of the environment etc. then we are being political. I also don't have quite such a cynical view of Politicians as Hugh, sure a lot of them may be a loathsome bunch of self-serving hypocrites out to stick their noses in other peoples business, but from my personal experience there are also quite a few who actually believe in the notion of public service and have a genuine desire to make things better.

In relation to Ian's (always interesting) comments, I am not trying to steer away from Politics (though I failed to make this clear in what I wrote!), I just didn't want the blog to be Party political. In fact I seem to be one of the few people these days who is actually interested in the subject, I even took my degree in it! I just can't stand the tribal everything about my party is great and all the others are totally wrong side of things, when in fact no one party has a monopoly on good ideas. Ian, perhaps we should form the 'Not A Party Party' or NAPP and see if we can get elected, I think I will sleep on that one.........

2007-10-19T22:46:00.000+01:00

David Gold is gone

Had to remove the link to David Gold's Blog as it has changed into a solely electioneering website, this is not to say I disagree with every thing he has to say (surprisingly given he is a conservative, a party I have never voted for), it's just my blog is not political and I didn't want any one to infer I support the Conservative party. I would do the same if it were Labour or Liberal Democrat. Nuff said.

2007-10-14T22:16:00.000+01:00

It's Done!
Finally got time to write a blog entry. Been building an en-suite shower room but now it's finished! Yippee!! So now I can get back to the serious issue of blogging.
This was the neglected corner of my bedroom, home to junk and the wash bin.

The toilet will go here.
Just started
The radiators gone.
Let's skip to the end, this is getting boring, The toilet!
And the handbasin!
and the rest...

2007-07-21T08:35:00.000+01:00

Another sunset

2007-07-18T21:41:00.000+01:00

A Bandstand for the 21st Century?

As you may know Plumstead Common used to have a Bandstand, it was located at the western end of the Common, near Blendon Terrace. The Adventure Playground now occupies the site. It was demolished in the 1970's apparently following arson attacks and vandalism. There is an urban myth that it was in fact dismantled and is lying in some forgotten council warehouse.

You may ask why am I blogging about this long gone and mostly forgotten relic of the Common's past, the reason is that I have an Idea and I want to know if people think it is a good one or have I in fact just gone quite mad?

My Idea, a new bandstand 'for the 21st century, I am not talking about some modern unused pastiche of a 19th century icon, but an open air performance space for the many communities of Plumstead. The Victorians knew a thing or to about making urban living civilised and bringing culture to the masses, hence among many other things, bandstands so why can't we update the idea for now and do something really exciting for the area?

I hope to get the PCEG involved and this is an extract of what I wrote to the chair, Nick Day:

'...one of the historical losses from the Common was the demolition of the Bandstand in the 1970's. But I have a vision for a 'bandstand for the 21st century'. It wouldn't be somewhere just for brass bands on a Sunday afternoon, (not that there is anything wrong with that, I think that would be fabulous in itself), but I was thinking more of a multi-use open-air community performance platform that could host music, dance, theatre, and even be a venue for a big screen during the 2012 Olympics.
I had a look at the 2012 website http://main.london2012.com/en/ourvision/olympism+and+culture/ and in particular the pdf file on the cultural update on 2012 http://main.london2012.com/NR/rdonlyres/00006717-77A7-4285-90AD-A1896E051202/0/Cultureupdate210607.pdf
..... and I think if we move fast and can get local people enthused there is real potential for the funding of such a project, which I think would bring about a real legacy benefit for the area. It is also the kind of project which might just inspire the younger generation to participate....
..This may just be a pipe dream on my part, but I think it has the potential to be something really exciting. When I have travelled on the continent I have always been struck how even relatively small towns have cultural festivals, performances etc. often in a town square or similar central location, and I don't see why Plumstead can't do something similar.'

Now this is one thing where I would really appreciate hearing what people think, is it a good idea or have I just gone nuts?

2007-07-18T21:21:00.000+01:00

Marcus bought this the other day, 'cos he was thirsty, looks like wee to me, Marcus says it tasted like it too.
Mind you, I don't know how he knows what wee tastes like.

2007-07-17T22:12:00.000+01:00

The Great British Obsession

(House Prices, not the weather which is the other one!)

For most people house purchase is the biggest single financial transaction we enter into, so perhaps it is not surprising people take a keen interest in what they believe their home is worth, although I have never understood why so many people automatically think increased prices are a good thing. I am sure many of us get a warm glow when we hear our little pied-a-terre is worth a quarter of a million quid, but all that means is the next house up the housing ladder is probably £75,000 more rather than £50,000, well that doesn't strike me as much of a bonus (though if you are trading down, then that is). It is of course all right if your area is going up in value by more than the one you want to move to, but as for the poor sods trying to get on the housing ladder, my heart goes out to them, to get a house in Plumstead these days you need a joint income of at least £50,000.

I am not suggesting that falling prices are a good thing I well remember the misery of negative equity suffered by so many in the early to mid 90's, it's just one of those things, that really isn't as simple as, up good, down bad.
Nos 50,52 &54
In terms of the Plumstead market I think there is a bit of a boom going on, especially my end, nearer to Woolwich and the DLR. The 3 houses at the top of my road have all been sold over the last year and a bit, and are all a similar style, layout etc.
no 52. went for £172,500 in Feb 06, no 50 £182,500 in Aug 06, and no 54 was sold within a few days of going on the market last month so I expect it went for something near the asking price of £219,995. Of course, what this kind of fevered price increases tends to generate is a certain amount of greed in some people, as can be seen by the owners of the small rabbit hutch I look down on at the bottom of my garden, who are currently marketing their property at £245,000 and surprise, surprise, it is still on the market, unsold.

Rather than prices, what concerns me more is some of the wider issues, around housing. All the parties agree we need more of it, especially in London and the South East as this is the only long term answer to the problem of affordability, but then comes the problem of where. Nobody seems to want it where they live, the cry goes up of the Thames Gateway, but then you end up destroying unique habitats such as the Erith and Crayford marshes (more about these on a subsequent post), and you are also building on a floodplain which is a whole other can of worms.

But the lack of suitable new housing (whether for sale or rent) leads to other problems, one of which is HMO, or houses in multiple occupation as the jargon goes, as Plumstead has relatively low prices (by London standards) it is a target for buy to let purchasers, some of these houses are rented to families, which does not change the character of the area, but some are let off room by room to individuals. Now I am not having a go at every one who rents a room we all need somewhere to live, but this can cause problems, one is that it leads to a transient population with no roots in the area, it puts pressure on things like car parking, such houses are frequently not looked after, and there are often problems with noise. One house in my street was so comprehensively trashed that it is still vacant today.

The problem with HMO!
Another problem comes with the shortage of social housing for rent, there is so little available that when something does come up it goes to those in the 'greatest need', but what really pisses me off is that those in the greatest need are frequently people who have deliberately been irresponsible and the people who suffer are those who act reasonably manner. By irresponsible I mean people who choose to have child after child, while expected the state i.e. me to pick up the bill for their upbringing and accommodation. While others who are on a relatively low income, but choose not to breed until they are in a position to afford to do so are stuck on council house waiting lists. A little while ago Margaret Hodge was vilified, I think quite unfairly, for suggesting that established British families should have their long term residence in this country taken into account when social housing is being allocated, in my view failure to do this just gives oxygen to far right groups like the BNP, who can prey on peoples feelings of unfairness.

Not sure of the answers to all of these questions, but I do know they need to be answered.

2007-07-16T22:05:00.000+01:00

PCEG and stuff

As loyal readers will know some time ago I joined The Plumstead Common Environment (keep having to resist the urge to add 'al' at the end, must be something psychological at work there) Group, because I was fed up with the state of the Heavitree Close garages.
Well, after much delay, a painting by cleansweep, another graffiti attack, a wait for some paint, another wait for it to stop raining and I have finally done what I said I would do and paint the wretched stuff out.
So now all I have to do is keep on top of it and paint it out as soon as it appears. One of the current solutions to the problem is to get the little monsters to paint it out themselves if they get caught, but I would prefer a more radical solution, and that would be for local people to go round and paint our own tags all over the houses of the offending brats, that way we can all see exactly who is to blame and I bet a few more parents would have a better idea where their little darlings are. I think my tag would be ageing avenger.

2007-07-16T21:44:00.000+01:00

Congratulations.....

arthurpewtys.... has reached its centenary, it is 100 posts old, and by coincidence, with this post sibonetic has reached its half century! Do have a look at arthurpewtys.... as it is always an entertaining read, this week Hugh recounts the tale of the not very bright chav thieves in Morrisons, Erith. He also wants a new camera, though I think his pics are really good with the one he has got.

I myself am quite happy with my new Fuji which I took my Tour de France pics with. If has anti-shake and and rechargeable lithium battery and that will do me. It is also on special offer at the moment, though it is currently £10 more than I paid.

2007-07-16T21:28:00.000+01:00

www.plumsteadpups.co.uk

A while a go I did a little post about Marc's course on web design at Greenwich Community College . Well the site is now up and running so have a look and if you have a Plumstead pooch then send Marcus a few details and a pic and he will immortalise your pup on the web.

2007-07-10T18:35:00.000+01:00

This is how sad I can be!

Last Night I was having a look at the London Bloggers website, which for those of you who don't know is a site which lists blogs according to the tube/overground railway map, and I thought it would be fun to see how many blogs are listed at each station and see who the most prolific blogers are. So I thought I would limit my search to the local area, I had a look at Greenwich/Bexley. I started off with the raw figures, which had Greenwich on top with 30 Blogs, followed by Blackheath 18, Woolwich Arsenal 15, Abbey Wood 14, Charlton and Plumstead on 11 each, Maze Hill 10 Westcombe Park 7, with the other stations in the area on 4 or fewer the lowest being Bexley with absolutely no Blogs at all.

Now this is where I started to get really sad, as it occured to me that I was not measuring like with like and some stations are busier than others, so I looked up the passenger numbers on Wikipedia and divided that figure by the number of blogs at the station. This changed the positions somewhat with Maze Hill moving from 5th to 1st place with 54,000 passengers per blog, just pipping Greenwich on 55,000. Plumstead storms into 3rd place (68,000), with Wescombe Park 4th (72.000), little Woolwich Dockyard which didn't even figure in the previous top 10 is 5th, equal with Charlton (76,000), Blackheath falls to 7th (110,000), Woolwich Arsenal is 8th (135,000), Erith 9th (144,000) and Abbey Wood completes the top 10 (157,000).

At the other end of the scale, Bexley is still bottom with no blogs, next to them comes Welling where 1.6m passengers journeys a year only produce 1 blog.

Now there are 3 south eastern lines running through Greenwich and Bexley to Dartford and there is a clear heirarchy of blogging the Greenwich/Woolwich line has 106 entries, Blackheath/Bexleyheath 37 and only 11 on the Sidcup line.

The question is what can explain this, is it that pepole in Greenwich/Woolwich are more literate? Can people in Welling actually write? Maybe the bloggers exist, but don't think they live in London so don't list on London Bloggers, from experience there are a lot of people in Bexley, especially in the south of the borough who think because they have a Dartford postcode they live in Kent, I would suggest to them that they wake up and smell the coffee, you are in tne London Borough of Bexley, you elect members of the Greater London Authority and not Kent County Council. Perhaps there are computer literacy problems in Bexley so they are not online. Or is it that people on the Greeenwich/Woolwich line have more to complain about, perhaps we are a big bunch of moaners! and happy people don't feel the need to blog. I need explainations, any suggestions?

Update

Plumstead has now established a clear lead over Charlton in the raw data, having added 2 blogs this week, taking it to 13. When adjusting for passenger numbers it retains its 3rd spot, but is now snapping at the heels of Greenwich and Maze Hill, with 57,000 passengers per blog. If one more Plumstead blogger takes the plunge and lists on London Bloggers then Plumstead will become the Blogging capital of Greenwich and Bexley. (thanks to erik-fuller for the update)

2007-07-08T12:35:00.000+01:00

Tour de France

Hits Plumstead High Street
Wait for it
Not yet
Soon
Nearly there
it's the leaders
The Yellow Jersey Fabian Cancellara

Now the pack

They keep on coming

More!

Nearly over
That's the end of the pack
One straggler

2007-07-07T20:14:00.000+01:00

Day of the triffids?
(Japanese Knotweed)

The Knotweed is the big bright green clump at the top of the slope

At the councils Great Get Together, one concerned local resident came up to me on the PCEG stall and asked what was being done about the Japanese Knotweed, which was to be found on the western end of the Common, by St Johns Terrace. I of course stared at him blankly and asked if he wanted to join so he could bring the matter up at the next meeting (Sunday 8th July, St Mark's and St Margaret's Church Hall, 3pm), at which he baulked at the £4 cost of annual membership, so I guess he wasn't really that concerned about it after all.

It looks like bamboo, but isn't related. It blocks out completing native species, and forms a large 'monoculture stand'. Its organic waste forms a deep layer and prevents native species seeds from germinating.

It did however ring a few bells as I remember reading about some problems that residents of Chelsworth Drive and Tuam Road were having with said weed growing on waste land behind their homes.

The footpath on St John's Terrace has been completely overgrown by the Knotweed

I also then saw it mentioned in the management plan for Plumstead Common as something that threatened the biodiversity of the Common and that effort should be made to eliminate it. So in the interests of I science I decided to investigate a bit more. What I found out was rather scary. The plant is an absolute menace and is running amok in the UK as it has no natural controls such as insect, parasites etc. to keep it in check. It is deemed so hazardous and threatening to the environment that it is illegal to spread it under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981. You can find out more about Japanese Knotweed here.

New shoots are already coming up through the footpath
and the roadway

I have to say if I lived in St Johns Terrace I would be rather concerned as 'The rhizome (posh word for roots I think) system may extend from a parent plant up to 7 meters laterally and to a depth of 3 metres'. That means that the roots for the problem plant can go over 21 feet sideways. So the weed on land looked after by the council can come under the road and footpath and up into your front garden or even your front room, damaging your property in the process. It is already breaking up the footpath on the side by the Common.

The footpath has almost disappeared

I will certainly be asking the Council what they intend to do about it when I go to the Council's Parks Friends Buffet on the 13th July.

How long before you get this?

2007-07-05T18:55:00.000+01:00

Busy, Busy, Busy

Had a bit of a blogging interregnum, because life suddenly went a bit manic, not in a bad way, not in a particularly good way, just didn't seem to get the time to blog. However got an unexpected evening off tonight, as I went to see my Dad last night and combined it with picking Marcus up from his day at his Mothers, so hey presto a Thursday with nothing to do but walk the dogs (or from the look of it take them for a swim) and blog.

Not done a proper entry since June 16th, only some photos and a' swot a tory piece' + the not very shocking revelation that the Tories are finally learning that they have to appear reasonable it they want to get elected.

Enough of politics and back to the Asian Mela of June 23rd, which was a bit of a washout if it had not been for the appearance of Hugh from arthurpewtys.... blog fame, (but more about Hugh later), and of course the Asian Wrestling . I was manning a stall for PCEG in an attempt to broaden its membership, to make it more diverse (my idea) and less middle aged, middle class and white. (not that I object to any of these things, being all 3 myself). So there was me sitting alone on a soggy field, managing to sell a couple of books and sign up 3 new members (all white, middle class and middle aged!). So if there are any young people from an ethnic minority with a working class background, preferably disabled reading this who have an interest in helping to look after Plumstead Common PLEASE join PCEG, so we can tick our demographic boxes, don't worry you don't have to be gay, we have got that one covered!
Six days later it was back up to the Common (Winn's, this time) for the Councils Great Get Together. Which weather wise was a bit of a let down, but I have to say was really well organised with loads of things to do, the entertainment was pretty good including 4 poofs and a Piano from 'Jonathan Ross' fame.

Only bit I couldn't stand was the Rap, I really think there should be laws against inflicting that rubbish on unsuspecting members of the Public. Managed to sign up another 9 PCEG members, not just middle aged people, bagged a couple of near deaths as well. I guess young people have far more interesting things to do.

Seriously there is a PCEG meting this Sunday (8th July) 3pm at St Marks and St Margaret's Church Hall on Old Mill Road if anyone is interested in coming along, it could be interesting as future plans for the Common are soon to be a hot topic as the councils management plan for the Common is to be put out to public consultation. I will probably write a separate post about this, but the plan is in confidential draft form at the moment.
________________________________________________
Stop Press

Just had an e-mail from icesave to say they are putting the interest rate up on my savings from next Monday to 6.2%, so if you are with one of those shoddy traditional UK financial institutions which fails to pass on base rate rises in full to savers, I urge you to move your money. (I bet they increase your mortgage rate by the full amount, or more!). Stick the money grabbers where it hurts.
________________________________________________

Plumstead and environs Blogs

There is a new blog on the block, well new to Plumstead (erik-fuller), which had a few comments on various Local blogs. Which got me thinking we ought to have a blog party/awards ceremony. On one level it could be a good excuse to get out of cyber space and into the real world! It could be a good excuse for a few beers (or wine or whatever your tipple!). Awards categories could include
Most elastic use of the English language, Post which induced the most comments of a homicidal nature, contributor most likely to be helping the Columbian rural economy, post most likely to enrage the local council, or Tories or whoever, blog most likely to get a Jazz cafe in Plumstead. (other suggestions welcome) For entertainment we could have the sibonetic v Last Boy Scout 'Handbags at Dawn' contest.
It could all culminate in the 'Blog of the Year award', indeed I am currently musing over my acceptance speech....'

'with thanks to Hugh, without his unfailing support and encouragement none of this would have been possible, to Nigel for his honest attempts to keep me on the straight and narrow. (wipes away tear) To t for his forthright promotion of kamikaze driving and bringing about sticky ends for chavs, to the Rev for his ability to make a comment even when the post was frankly rather boring, thanks to all of you who have made this award possible (dissolves into floods of tears) I love you all.'

erik-fuller's blog also alluded to the Common/high Street divide, which prompted me to make this comment, which I reproduce here,

'The whole up the hill down the hill thing in Plumstead is really quite amusing, when you add in Shooters Hill as well it starts to remind me of the 60,s sketch with John Cleese, Peter Cook and Dudley Moore from TW3. With Clease on Shooters Hill looking down on Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, Peter Cook (from the Common) looking up to John and down on Dudley and Dudley knowing his place, (down on the High Street).'
It may have been Ronnie Barker and Corbett, my memory seems to be failing!! think I am having a senior moment!

Finally HAPPY 40th to top bloke Hugh, who was undone by a combination of the Rev (aka Ian), his Aunt Betty (in America) and the power of the internet, into letting slip his birthday was on the 3rd July.

2007-06-25T22:38:00.000+01:00

Censorship in Plumstead part 2

Don't worry I am not entering into a blogging war with The Last Boy Scout as that would be really boring, all is over, but in reading the explanation he posted on his blog, he included a link to David Gold's blog, he being the Prospective parliamentary candidate for the Conservatives in Eltham. I have to say that readers will have probably noticed that I am not a natural Conservative and I have to say that I have never yet voted for them, but never say never in my book and sometimes a change in government is necessary, nevertheless I found it to be quite readable, it made a good attempt to be balanced, I even agreed with a few things! He also had some generous and kind words to say about the recently deceased Labour MP for Ealing.

I have to say that to my mind this was very much how I think a Political Blog should be, obviously it will make the case for a particular point of view, but in the process seeks to explain and persuade. A cynic might say 'oh well, it's only because the guy wants to get elected', but I am not as cynical as you might believe. I have to say I liked his Blog so why don't you have a look and decide for yourself. David Gold's blog

2007-06-23T20:29:00.000+01:00

Censorship in Plumstead

Had a look at a local blog The Last Boy Scout and saw that on of my comments had been removed by the author. Now that is fair enough, it is in to power of the author to do so, but in the interests of free speech I thought I would try to go over the issues as fairly as I can so that anyone reading this can make up their own mind.
I have to say the blog in question is not one I read on a regular basis as I find its one sidedness somewhat tedious. The author is a conservative and tends to comment only on politics, and then it seems to me only to mirror whatever ill-informed claptrap he has read that day in the Daily Mail. So you are unlikely to actually get anything witty, thought provoking, or indeed anything that adds to or even resembles reasoned debate. Nevertheless I did have a scan through the other day and found a comment on moves by Tory peers to limit Ken Livingstone to two terms in office. If you have friends and a social life I put up the following quote from 'The Guardian Unlimited' on the 20th June to fill you in:

Mayor of London
The Lords voted to limit the mayor of London to two terms of office - a move which would bar Ken Livingstone from seeking re-election next year. Voting was 177 to 159 during the Greater London authority bill's report stage. But it is expected that the government will seek to reverse this move in the Commons.

For the Tories, Baroness Hanham, saying she was not referring to Mr Livingstone, told peers: "The office of mayor now in this country is the nearest thing we have to a dictator. There is very little that can stop the Mayor doing what he wants to do."

The The Last Boy Scout commented thus on his blog:

'Please let it be true

I have just spotted on the SKY News "Breaking News" strapline that the House of Lords has just voted to restrict the Mayor of London to two terms in office. If I read that correctly, that means that London could finally be rid of Ken!

Please, Please, Please be true.

Update: It's mostly true, as the BBC has tonight reported. The Lods did vote for an amendment to the GLA bill, call for the term of Mayor to be capped. I just hope it becomes law, London derserves better.'

To which I posted this comment, which is still there intact:

'I think Ken is quite capable of imploding of his own volition, it really doesn't need a bunch of unelected nobodies in the House of Lords, to try to deprive Londoners of their democratic rights to chose who they want to be Mayor of London'

I then noticed the previous blog entry on The Last Boy Scout it was about freeing prisoners early, the first line was:

'"Free them", that's the answer from the UNELECTED Secretary of State Lord Falconer.'

So I decided to post a further comment, (so far, in the interests of accuracy I have been able to copy and paste). However I cannot do this in this case because the comment was binned, so I will attempt to quote it as accurately as I can recall (and should I comment again on The Last Boy Scout I now know I have to keep a record). My comment was:

'I see from your previous post you comment on the UNELECTED Lord Falconer, I presume from your use of capitals that you disapprove of people who are unelected having power and making decisions, at least Lord Falconer is part of an elected government. The unelected Tory peers who seek to deny Londoners their democratic rights are part of a Conservative Party that has not won a General Election for 15 years. I have to say that your sheer hypocrisy is only matched by your political bigotry.'

It seems that The Last Boy Scout could not cope with this criticism and had to delete the comment. He also removed the link to my blog, but as I am a tolerant kind of fellow, I have added a link to his on mine. It's a shame he couldn't manage a response, but his response (or lack of it) did not surprise me, and this is why I think he reacted as he did:

Now I like Politics, I have a degree in it. But I cannot stand people who are completely one sided. Nearly all political parties have good and bad people, the competent and incompetent. They have good policies and bad policies, things they do well and things they cock up. No one party has a monopoly on good sense and people who slavishly and unquestioningly follow one side while hurling juvenile insults at the other are no better than the moronic football fan who cannot appreciate good play by the opposition.

I would go further, the danger these people pose is their fanaticism. The inability to comprehend another's point of view and to have the humility to recognise that they may be wrong is the root of dictatorship, intolerance, and persecution. It doesn't matter if they are, Muslim extremists, evangelical Christians, the Catholic Church, rabid little Englander Tories, the BNP or a bunch of left wing nutters, the danger they pose is always the same, they are so sure they are right and all that oppose them are evil, that they are prepared to do anything to try and get there own way.

Now I am sure the The Last Boy Scout is a lovely fellow and kind to animals and children...but, after all Hitler was a vegetarian...

2007-06-22T11:34:00.001+01:00

Plumstead Sunset

From my spare bedroom

2007-06-16T13:21:00.000+01:00

Things I would like to know the answer to...
but don't (part 4)

Given all the CCTV cameras on the Glyndon Estate, how did they fail to capture the moronic Chav's who were riding round on/dumped this?

2007-06-16T12:53:00.000+01:00

Things I would like to know the answer to...
but don't (part 3)

How many lives do Sleeping Policemen save and how many do they kill by delaying ambulances, is there a net gain or loss? Is it we value young people (more likely to get run over) more highly than old people (more likely to need an ambulance)?
I have to declare a personal interest here, when, foolishly I stepped out into the road aged 11, into the path of a speeding Austin Maxi, I only had enough time to take one step, In that road today the traffic has been slowed by 'traffic calming', I would have taken two steps, so instead of sitting on the verge looking down at a foot pointing sideways at an impossible angle, I would have been under or over the car and very probably dead.

There is actually another thing I want to know here. Why is it the drivers fault even if he is speeding? My first words to poor Maxi driver were 'it's not your fault' I was the one who stepped out without looking, and all I could think about was how awful it must be for the driver to have knocked down a kid. So I told my Dad later on that day that it was my fault and he told the Police not to pursue it.
This contrasts with the husband of a friend of mine who was not speeding when a child ran straight out into his path without looking and the dirty little money grabbing parents are trying to get as much filthy lucre as they can. (child suffered no lasting damage btw). Why do some people always have to blame someone else? Sometime things are our own fault and I was always taught to own up and deal with it.

2007-06-16T11:59:00.000+01:00

Things I would like to know the answer to...
but don't (part 1)

While being well aware of the fashion disasters of my youth, the flares of the mid 70's spring immediately and painfully to mind, one thing I really cannot understand is the need for today's youf to expose their under garments and have the crotch of their trousers somewhere around their knees. Quite apart from being rather unsightly, it must be murder trying to escape from the police on foot when you have trapped your hips in a straitjacket, no wonder the prisons are full to bursting point.

2007-06-10T22:03:00.000+01:00

Plumstead 19 years on

Was reading the other day about the polish gentleman who woke up recently from a coma, 19 years after being hit by a train. He awoke to a completely changed world of democracy, NATO and EU membership for his country. It got me thinking, what if the poor fellow had been knocked down by a 53 bus up by Plumstead Common? and awoke in 2007, what changes would he notice? Would he notice any?

Politically of course there are changes nationally, but locally it's still a Labour council 19 years on. The area is probably a bit richer overall, as is the country. There are mobile phones, the internet (couldn't do this 19 years ago), but these changes are world wide, I am thinking, how has Plumstead changed (if at all!).

The first thing to say is if our fictitious victim was hit by a 53 bus, if it was before the 19th Nov. 1988. he would have been done in by a routemaster, so he would awake to a one person operated bus (though I think you were allowed to call it one man operation back then).
Once on the bus, I expect he would notice the hoards of brats travelling for free, and the inability to see out of the windows due to the amount of vandalism/graffiti.

Outside would be the proliferation of traffic calming measures, including the sleeping policeman, no doubt he would also become aware that the police themselves are actually asleep when it comes to policing the roads. Having left it up to speed cameras, and surrendered the roads to anarchy.

I guess the amount of cameras spying on us generally, in shops, council estates etc. would also come as a bit of a shock.

But what else is different? There is a shiny new Police Station, apparently with fabulous facilities for the officers, now someone more cynical than I might suggest that's why you rarely see them on the streets. The tennis courts have been done up. PCEG would be new to him, they started in 1991, (they get very upset if you don't mention them), but would someone notice them in 2007.

Can't think of any other buildings of note having gone up since 1988 in Plumstead.

I have it, the thing you would notice, is all the Pole's living here! Didn't get that in 1988.

2007-06-07T22:12:00.000+01:00

Bad Behaviour part 3

Got my House insurance renewal quote through this week, now mine is set up so it just comes out of the bank, that way you don't really have to think about it......BAD MOVE. This time I did have a look at it at it had got up by £200, now I haven't made a claim, in fact I have owned my house for nearly 21 years and I have never claimed on my house insurance, so what could possibly justify a premium increase of such an amount, taking it to over £700?

I resolved to phone up 'Direct Line' (owned by RBS, profits last year £8.2bn a 16% increase) to find out, I was greeted by a very personable young lady, who on finding that I was proposing to no longer avail myself of said insurance immediately offered me £70 off the cost, while being polite to the young lady as it wasn't her fault that her employers are a bunch of unscrupulous conmen. I declined the opportunity to continue give them my business. Inside however I was absolutely seething, basically what had happened was that they were relying on my loyalty and slothfulness to shaft me good and proper! If they can give me £70 off they shouldn't bloody well have tried to charge me it in the first place.

I also object to being made to haggle, I am sorry but we hear a lot about peoples culture these days, well I find haggling is not part of my culture, if I ask what the price of something is, that's what I want to know, I don't what to find out what someone thinks they can get away with charging me, hoping I don't notice it is overpriced, I want to know what if costs so that I get what I want and they make a reasonable profit. Having to be made to haggle and having your loyalty kicked back in your face if you don't, is NOT English.

UPDATE Went to Confused.com and got buildings and contents insurance for £210! that's over £500 less than direct Line wanted to charge, so it pays to shop around.

It reminded me of all the comments about ignorant, selfish, greedy people that have been a recent feature of this blog. It seems to me that if we are going to complain about chavs, thugs, some people with 4x4's, those playing music on the Bus and all those other aggravations, we should also have a look at how the selfishness inherent in the worst of capitalism helps to promote a society which is only out for itself and to hell with all the rest. A culture of anything I can get away with is all right so long as I don't get caught. Probably the financial services industry has to be the worst offender in this respect.

Some of these scams, you will be aware of others not, but these are just some of the things that I know about.

The great mortgage exit fee con, where they bumped up the fee for paying off your mortgage, in some cases by up to 6x's.
I Quote;
'Why have lenders increased MEAFs so much? I believe it's part of an increasing attempt to gemmy the competitive mortgage market. As many best buy tables work on the 'lowest interest rates', lenders have deliberately kept rates low, but increased fees to pay for it; so they look cheap, even when they're not. Yet it now turns out, with MEAFs anyway, this simply isn't allowed.

As well as MEAFs, the same's true with application fees among others, which a few years ago were typically £300, but are now often £600 - £1,000. For this reason you should be very careful when choosing a mortgage

'The bank charges con ( not that this one ever caught me out as I was only once charged anything which was back in the 80's, I challenged it and got the money back, though not an admission that it was a con, that took another 20 years and the FSA), whereby those who got into financial difficulty, often through no fault of their own had misery heaped upon misery as each little infraction brought charge after charge down on their heads.

The endowment miss selling scandal which actually has more than one angle to it, the bit that is well known is that if you didn't realise that your return was not guaranteed then you could get compensation. What is less well known, and you can't get any redress for, is that in many endowments, some of of your profits had been promised to other people in the form of guarantees so if growth was less than expected then your profits get paid to others, I for one would never have taken out an endowment policy if I had been told that. In addition if you knew that the investment was in shares did you then know that the company can shift that money into something else, fundamentally changing the nature of the investment and lowering the potential for growth and there is nothing you can do about it, you can't even get your money out , because they impose exit penalties. They also often make this shift when shares are at their lowest point, even the most incompetent financial advisor knows you don't sell at the bottom of the market. You then flog the whole lot off to another company, which asset strips the funds and you wash your hands of the whole matter and change your brand name to 'more than' and hope the great British public don't realise that you are really Royal Sun Alliance (profits £780m), who shafted several million clients a few years earlier.

I could go on, Pensions, manipulation of interest rates to widen margins etc, etc.

I quote
'Finally, it's worth noting that mortgage lenders often use changes in the base rate to fatten their profits by improving their margins. For example, in 1989, when the base rate hit 15% a year, the typical SVR was around 15.4%. In other words, most lenders got by on the slimmest of lending margins: just 0.4% about the base rate. These days, mortgage lenders are milking loyal borrowers by charging SVRs around 2% above the base rate, the profits of which then help to fund attractive deals to new borrowers. So much for rewarding loyal customers!'

Thought I would finish by explaining a few banking terms:

Established banking practice = we have got away with this particular scam for years, so why the hell are you complaining now.

Self regulation = one bunch of cheats get together with others to learn better ways of conning people without getting found out.

Terms and conditions = All list of some of the ways we can shaft our customers and get away with it.

Balance transfer fees= a way of charging interest on 0% balance transfers.

I could go on, my personal list of con merchants I have come across, HBOS(profits £5.7bn, up 19%), RBS('RBS profit for 2007 'set to top £10.3bn'), Royal Sun Alliance, Abbey, and a few that are not banks BT (profits £2.5bn, up 15%), British Gas (owned by Centrica, profits £1.4bn), EDF, what do you think, am I being unfair?

2007-06-07T19:09:00.000+01:00

Good Behaviour (part 1)

My friend, colleague and local resident Sue has just come back from Scotland having raised money for the Unison 'Bucket and Spade appeal'. Which raises money for hard pushed families to go on holiday. It's one of those interesting things that while most of us are able to go on more and more holidays and short breaks etc. the % of people who have no holiday has barely changed over the last 30 years, obviously some of those are people who just don't like holidays! But a good few are those people at the bottom of the income pile, who haven't benefited from the last 15 years of growth in the economy, and/or are people whose family circumstances are such that they can't go on holiday. Perhaps they have carer responsibilities etc. and it is those people that the appeal is designed to help. Unions often come in for a load of stick in the media, some of it perhaps even justified, so all the good things that they do sometimes get overlooked, and as a lot of Unison members are low paid this is a good example of one of those good things.

Sue has kindly sent me a little journal of her trip which I have reproduced below. I am not writing this to ask for money for the appeal as this is a Plumstead blog and not a charity blog, but I do think it's nice once in a while to find out a bit about the good things that local people do for others, so well done to Sue. Got a bit of an update, Sue has raised over £1000 for the appeal over the last 2 years, which when you take into account the fact that the average holiday arranged costs a bit over £400, then 2 families have Sue to thank for their holiday! Oh and by the way, Sue pays all her own expenses for the trip, as do all the people raising money for the appeal so all the money raised goes to people who would benefit from a break.

Unison Charity Walk for the Bucket and Spade Appeal

Thanks everyone for contributions to the Unison Bucket and Spade Appeal. So far in four years they have raised about £250,000.

Can’t say how much I enjoyed the walk – it was great and I loved every minute. The group were fun, interesting and easy to get along with. The two who arranged must have worked very hard as if ran smoothly although we were moving about, catching ferries and driving to the next hostel. The support team – van and bus drivers were fun and hard working.

The first day we walked through Forestry Commission land around Loch Shiel near Glenfinnan for 16 miles in about 5 hours excluding the 20 minutes to eat lunch – we might have taken a bit longer but the midges started to bite some of the walkers.

We then drove to Mallaig to catch the ferry to Armdale on the Isle of Skye and then drive to Uig Youth Hostel.

On the Friday we walk 11 miles and the first thing you notice about Skye is there are no trees as it is so windy. There are plenty of small wild flowers on the moors. That evening we catch the ferry stay on the Uists – North Uist, Benbecula and South Uist -where we stay in a hotel. This hotel has the strangest menu due, we believed to the fact that they grow very little on the island and everything is shipped in. The soil is so sandy that the crops that do grow there are very specialised.

Saturday and Sunday we walk on Uists and sometimes have to drive across the sand at low tide to get to the islands. Two different walks on both days each walk of about 5 miles or more. These walks cover wind swept beaches, moor lands and cliffs.

A six o’clock start is not welcome but we had to catch the early ferry to Oban – a 6 hour crossing. After lunch a walk of about 5 miles around the Black Lochs.

Up early again on Monday for the ferry to Mull. After dropping off our bags it’s off to Garmony for the start of the walk which will take us to Tobermory (aka Ballamory). The first half of the walk is through the most beautiful woods – tall pine trees and thick, thick mosses like huge green cushions. We detour into the woods to see the remains of an old settlement dated approximately 1760. The walls of the buildings have collapsed and covered in the think mosses. We walked on to Tobermory with the painted houses, on through the town and up over windswept cliff tops. A hard climb up and then back down into the town. Back to the hostel to pack for the next day, a quick wash and off to our last meal.

Wednesday we are up early to get to the airport to catch flights home.

2007-06-02T11:02:00.000+01:00

Bad Behaviour (part 2)

Had this excellent comment from Hugh, who writes the entertaining blog arthurpewtys.... on my previous post.

'I am strongly of the opinion that society is divided and that divide is getting wider. Without getting into sociological claptrap, I feel we have a population that is comprised of normal people (IE - you and I and our friends and peer group) and Scum. Nothing whatsoever to do with race, orientation, belief (or not) system - purely the fact that there is a significant chunk of the population who think that they are entitled to everything and need to pay back nothing.'

Aside from the fact I couldn't have put it better myself, I think this really sums up an unfortunate truth, most of us just want to get on with life, not causing offence or upset to others, but a few people really don't give a shit about the effect their actions have on those around them. Saw a brilliant example of this divide up on the Common this morning.

Chelsea, prone to premature retaliation!
Now I have to exercise Chelsea in a place where you can control her access to other dogs, as she is a little too keen to get her retaliation in first, so we go to a fenced in bit of Plumstead Common, next to the Tennis Courts. That way she can run around and not upset anyone else.

The Tennis Courts
The Tennis Courts are well used, especially on a Saturday morning, on the court nearest me were 3 black men, happily enjoying a bit of exercise. Also at that end of the Tennis Courts are the 2 gates, one on either side. People who are not playing Tennis often use these gates as a cut through, to save going round all 4 courts. Now first of all, I only cut through there if no one is playing because it is just plain rude to disturb someone's game just to save yourself a minute. Other people are less considerate. a swarthy looking white guy on a bike decides to cut through, disturbing the Black guys game, he leaves the gate open on his way in, the black guys say nothing, he holds up their game going through, the black guys say nothing, he leaves the gate open on the way out, one of the black guys, no doubt exasperated asks him very politely to close the gate (otherwise the balls fly out through the hedge and on to the old bowling green!) . The first response was a muffled grunt of 'why man'. Again the black guy politely asks him to close the gate, more incomprehensible grunts emanated from the swarthy white slob on the bike. At which point, and I don't blame him in the slightest, the black guy said
'oh fuck you'
and realising that there is no point in reasoning with the unreasonable, carried on with his game. the reply from swarthy white guy was,
'Fuck you, I'm Albanian'.
So apparently, being Albanian explains why you are an anti-social little shit!
I have to say I know who I would want to live next door to, and it ain't swarthy white guy.

2007-06-01T16:27:00.000+01:00

Bad Behaviour

Seen and heard about a couple of quite bits of quite appalling behaviour this week. The first was one I saw on Plumstead Common on Wednesday evening, while giving Chelsea and Charlton their evening constitutional. There was a bunch of Chavs and Chavesses, loitering around the Common, riding around on one of those mini motorbikes, which is stupid, illegal and dangerous enough.

However one of the illiterate, uneducated chavess scum, a slapper in her 20's (that or she has had a very hard life, on her back no doubt), was careering round on aforementioned illegal machine, with a small child, no more than 3 years old, perched on the front handlebars. If it was hers, she is obviously a quite unfit parent and surely it's about time such children are removed from such people and flogged off to someone with a bit more responsibility.

Sell it on!!
Such a course of action would have at least 2 notable benefits, it would help to reduce the future size of the Prison population and the money raised could be put towards a lovely tax cut for me.

The other bit of bad behaviour was even worse, my friend Marcus was in Woolwich on Thursday having done a bit of Shopping. and he had just got into his Cab, which he had booked with Com Cab to take him home.

Now Marcus has Multiple Sclerosis, so he needs to get cabs to get out and about as it is really difficult for him to walk any distance. Three Black women with two babies in buggies decide that they were entitled to take the Cab that Marcus had booked, so they literally pulled him out of the Cab and threw him to the floor along with his shopping and got in. Luckily the cabbie, who is a really nice guy and often takes Marcus around and about, had the presence of mind to lock the doors and call the Cops, who to their credit were there before Marcus had picked himself up off the floor. It seems to me that such behaviour, though shocking is all too prevalent, the attitude that some people have, that they can have what they want, when they want and anyone who gets in the way, then that's just two bad. God knows what the babies are going to end up like with Mothers like that. Unfortunately, but rather typically the women then tried to claim that racism lay at the heart of their actions, claiming that Marcus had made racist remarks, the truth was that he did not even know they were there, until he was attacked.

This reminds me of something I saw on a 171 bus a few months back. The driver noticed that a black lady had got on and not paid, he refused to drive on until she did, she claimed that he was only picking on her because she was Black, he pointed out that he was, in fact picking on her because, unlike the other passengers on the bus she had not paid her fare. Eventually she stumped up the cash, while still insisting that the demand for payment was part of a racist conspiracy against her. Then, with the cheers of those black and white passengers who had paid their fare ringing in his ears, the black bus driver got back in his cab and resumed the journey.

2007-06-01T10:19:00.000+01:00

MY DAD

Every Thursday I go and see my Dad, we have a chat, a nice meal, a glass of wine. I look forward to it, he is a lovely man and we get on really well. So I got really annoyed last night when I found out that he was being accused of racism. Especially when I found out that those making the accusation didn't have the gumption to do so to his face, but instead started a wispering campaign behind his back.

To explain, I need to give a little background, my Dad is a very helpful obliging chap and very active in his community. One (of the many) things he is a member of is his local (CofE) Church, All Saints Upper Norwood. Now to celebrate St Georges day back in April they had a fun Social event, my Dad got asked to do a bit of entertainmet for it. He didn't want to, he feels that at 79 he may be getting a bit old for this kind of thing, but he was prevailed upon. So he found a really amusing monologe to do, about english schools (will post this later, when I find a copy) and a Flanders and Swan song 'A Song of Patriotic Prejudice' The lyrics of which I have reproduced below. In deciding if the song is racist you should note that Donald Swan was born in Wales to Russian parents!
It is a completely tounge-in-cheek piece of fun, he got the audience to sing along to the corus... The English The English...etc. Now the Welsh, Scots, Irish people in the audience were not offended, neither were the ladies from France or Greece or the German gentleman who was also there. Now, one particular person from an ethnic group which was not even mentioned or alluded to in the song decided to take offence and started ringing up friends to put it about that this was some sort of appalling piece of racism, though not having the guts to say anything to my Dad's face. What is wrong with people that they can't have a bit of fun, are they so insecure that they think a silly song extolling the virtues of the English is some sort of BNP anthem. It was St Georges Day. It was Fun. Some people need to get over themselves. What do you think?

The English, the English, the English are best
I wouldn't give tuppence for all of the rest.

The rottenest bits of these islands of ours
We've left in the hands of three unfriendly powers
Examine the Irishman, Welshman or Scot
You'll find he's a stinker, as likely as not.

Och aye, awa' wi' yon Edinburgh Festival

The Scotsman is mean, as we're all well aware
And bony and blotchy and covered with hair
He eats salty porridge, he works all the day
And he hasn't got bishops to show him the way!

The English, the English, the English are best
I wouldn't give tuppence for all of the rest.

Ah hit me old mother over the head with a shillelagh

The Irishman now out contempt is beneath
He sleeps in his boots and he lies through his teeth
He blows up policemen, or so I have heard
And blames it on Cromwell and William the Third!

The English are noble, the English are nice,
And worth any other at double the price

Ah, iechyd da

The Welshman's dishonest and cheats when he can
And little and dark, more like monkey than man
He works underground with a lamp in his hat
And he sings far too loud, far too often, and flat!

And crossing the Channel, one cannot say much
Of French and the Spanish, the Danish or Dutch
The Germans are German, the Russians are red,
And the Greeks and Italians eat garlic in bed!

The English are moral, the English are good
And clever and modest and misunderstood.

And all the world over, each nation's the same
They've simply no notion of playing the game
They argue with umpires, they cheer when they've won
And they practice beforehand which ruins the fun!

The English, the English, the English are best
So up with the English and down with the rest.

It's not that they're wicked or natuarally bad
It's knowing they're foreign that makes them so mad!

For the English are all that a nation should be,
And the flower of the English are Donald (Michael)Donald (Michael) and Me!

2007-05-25T11:43:00.000+01:00

Green Chain Walk

Most SE Londoners will have seen the direction signs for the Green Chain walk all over the place, as it is a network of paths stretching from Crystal Palace to Erith. I decided to write about it after reading a comment by 'the Rev' on a previous post...

'......I walked almost 2 miles either way every day to school. Sadly now I’m lucky if I walk half a mile a day…Shame, I LOVE walking…'

Rev it's not too late to get, back into a bit of walking, and there are some fantastic walks, right under our noses. The route I am going to describe is one I have done a couple of times with my Dad (who will be 80 in August) so it's never to late to give it a go. Apologies that the pictures are taken off the internet, but when I did the walk last year I hadn't yet got my digital camera.

The Green Chain refers to a whole chain of land across SE London which was protected from developers by enlightened Victorians, a sort of 19th century Green belt.

Plumstead Common soon after 'The Links' was built. (about 1900)
The walk I did with my Dad is (mostly) circular so you can start at any point, but we began at Plumstead Common 'cos that's where I live. We headed West off towards Charlton crossing the South Circular and going past the Royal Artillery Barracks, though the Royal Artillery are just about to leave Woolwich after 300 years, the barracks are to remain as a military installation.

The Barracks above in 1900 (see how little they have changed except they are in colour these days) will play host to the Olympic shooting events in 2012.

Charlton House
Then on to Charlton Park and a view of Charlton House which this year celebrates it's 400th aniversary. You then cut through a small Park and follow the route through the wild and wonderful Woolwich Common to emerge at the Old Police Station at Shooters Hill.

Woolwich Common

Then into Oxleas Woods, an area of ancient Woodland, only to be surprised by the 17th century folly Severndroog Castle.

Severndroog Castle

Castle Gardens
You go through the Castle's ornamental Gardens to emerge at Oxleas Meadow with some great views South and the opportunity to stop for a well earned cup of Tea.

Oxleas Woods
After diving back into Oxleas Woods you cross Shooters Hill and go through some of the Fields belonging to Woodlands Farm. This is a Working Farm, run as a educational trust. They have a Open Day on Sunday 10th June. It's their 10th anniversary and it sounds like a really good day out with arts and crafts, sheep dog displays, home grown produce, meet the animals and a whole lot more.

Woodlands Farm

East Wickham Open Space
Next stop is the deserted, but lovely East Wickham Open Space, then on to the wonderful Bostall Woods and Heath. At this point I would recommend a diversion from the circular route and take the walk down through Abbey Wood to emerge at the ruins of Lesnes Abbey.

Lesnes Abbey
It is amazing how many people, even locals don't realise that Abbey Wood actually has it's own Abbey, The area is beautifully maintained by Bexley Council and it is a good spot for a Picnic.

Winns Common
You need to then retrace your steps back through the Wood to Bostall Woods, but this time you take the path through the beautiful Beech Woods towards Plumstead. You cross Wickham Lane and climb Bleak Hill to emerge at Winns Common, with it's spectacular views across East London and beyond, while we all look down on East London, not everyone gets the chance to do so literally.

Slade Ponds

Alfie on the Slade steps (he didn't do the whole walk 'cos he only has short legs)
You then have to go all the way down the Slade steps passing the Slade Ponds on your left, taking the time to marvel at all the good work PCEG do!

The Slade
Then it's back to Plumstead Common, and you are home for tea.

Plumstead Common
There is a guide book available to the whole of the Green Chain, and there is also a lot of information at the Green Chain Website, including guides to the different sections that you can download.

Next time we plan to do the sections round Eltham and New Eltham, and this time I will take my camera, would have liked to do it over this Bank Holiday, but couldn't find my flippers, so will wait for the weather to improve.

2007-05-22T20:28:00.000+01:00

The School Run

Having vented my spleen on Nissan Micras and their incompetent owners (with the exception of Shirley). Some of the subsequent comments thew up a couple of other issues, the first is a loathing of people who have 4x4's for effect, and in particular the hideous and pointless Porsche Cayenne (above), but also their use by Mum's on the school run:

t put it like this:

'The worst case of cayennes congregating can be found by Colfes school in Lee with middle class, big-hair mums dropping off their dah-ling little Tristans. They can barely see over the bonnet let alone actually drive the things and beacause of this they block the road up something chronic. '

and Nigel put it thus:

'The school-run mums and others like 4x4s because they make them feel safer and give them a clearer view. So essentially we have some of the most timid, inexperienced, and unsafe drivers, driving around in the biggest and most dangerous vehicles. '

All of which got me thinking back to dim and distant past of my school days in the 70's. Going to Rockmount Junior school in Upper Norwood, out of a School of 360 pupils, only 1 got taken to school by car, and he got the piss taken out of him unmercilessly for being such a wuss. Nowadays either the kids seem to have gone feral by the age of 5 with no parental supervision or control whatsoever or they are so pampered and protected that they can't use a bus by themselveves at the age of 18.

The only way I managed to get a lift to school was to walk out in front of a car and get my ankle smashed to pieces, and even then it was only while the plaster was up to the top of my thigh, as soon as it went below the Knee, that was it, back on the Bus (and my Mum had her own car and didn't work). The other time was my 3rd year at secondary School when I managed to persuade my German teacher Mrs Beric to pick me up, which at least kept me up with all the gossip about who was shagging who on the staff.

2007-05-22T10:49:00.000+01:00

CUTTY SARK

Much has been said about the fire by people who know a lot more than me, but I do have one concern which was prompted by reading the following:

Ian Allchin, a press officer with London Fire Brigade, told Times Online that the firefighters' efforts were hampered. "Initially, we were in defensive mode, with crews standing well back from the flames," he said. "We were able to confirm within about 45 minutes that there were no hazards on board, and began to fight the fire aggressively."

Before anyone jumps down my throat, I do not claim to know anything about fire fighting and I am not saying the response of the Fire Brigade was wrong. What concerns me, and this is a question not an accusation, is that did the fire fighters treat the fire exactly the same way as any other fire or was sufficient consideration given to the fact that what was on fire was irreplaceable? If a mangy old warehouse is burning down then what does it matter if you wait 45 mins to check for hazards, but when the blaze is consuming an irreplaceable part of our heritage maybe there is a case to be made for going in and dealing with it straight away?

2007-05-20T12:14:00.000+01:00

Nick Raynsford

If like me you live in Glyndon Ward, (this includes most of Plumstead Common btw), if he stands again, our new MP will be Nick Raynsford as Glyndon is moving from Erith and Thamesmead to Greenwich and Woolwich. I find this very disturbing, because he seems to be a pretty crap MP, even when compared to profession car hater John Austin. I was doing some research on the Blackwall Tunnel fiasco about which I have commented previously and after following various leads, I came to the conclusion that Mr. Raynsford seems to do very little except coin in a load of cash for his retirement fund. I put this comment on an article on the excellent Charlton Average blog.

'On the subject of Nick Raynsford, (am interested as my ward is going over to Greenwich and Woolwich at the next election) he doesn't seem to have much to say about anything at all at the moment. Is he ill? or just plain lazy? Maybe he is planning to stand down at the next election and just can't be bothered any more?

He seems to have plenty of QUANGOS and directorships on the go

'I am currently Chairman of the Construction Industry Council and a Vice President of the Town and Country Planning Association, Honorary Fellow of the Institution of Civil Engineers and of the Royal Town Planning Institute, President of the Labour Housing Group and Chairman of the NHBC Foundation, the Fire Protection Association Council and the London Open House Supporters at Large Group. I am also a Non-executive Director of Rockpools and of Hometrack.'
all of which no doubt are contributing to his retirement fund. But if you try and find out his opinions of any local issues, there is a deafening silence.

He claims to have a new website under construction, but I can find no evidence of it. I can find no press releases from him since 1/11/2006, and not a speech since October last year.
He has only asked one question in this session of Parliament on 15/03/2007 about firemen's pensions.
He has intervened in several debates, but often these have not been related to Local matters, but seem to be either to protect his legacy as a former minister or as a spokesperson for the construction Industry.
I think the area deserves better.'

Seems I am not alone in my view, or even the first to question his work as an MP, found this post on the excellent Greenwich Phantom blog.

Am I being unfair? Is he just not communicating all the good work he does? or is he just a waste of space?

2007-05-17T13:56:00.000+01:00

ROAD SAFETY & RELIEVING CONGESTION

Got a suggestion to make our roads safer, less congested and faster, that is to confiscate and crush all Nissan Micra's and rescind the driving licences of all those who drive them.
I would suggest a start could be made with the particularly ridiculous Mk 2 'noddy’ car version (see above).

This would have massive benefits in relieving Traffic congestion as there would be far less driving on the outside lane of dual carriageways, just below the speed limit, without overtaking anything, there would be far less gaps in the traffic by people failing to keep up with the car in front and many more cars would be able to get through traffic lights when they are green, thus optimising the use of precious road space. Far fewer cars would be failing to drive through gaps big enough for a London Bus to go through sideways and you wouldn’t have to wait for the moron Micra driver in front of you trying to turn right, but needing the road clear for 2 miles in each direction before they turn out, thus speeding up the flow of traffic. Finally otherwise law abiding motorists will have far less chance of being driven to the edge of insanity by the Micra menace and will not feel the need to execute reckless manoeuvres in order to get past.

What is the problem with these people, is it that they learnt to drive in a Micra (seem to be the most popular driving school vehicle) and they are such poor drivers that they can’t think of using anything else? Whatever it is just get them off the roads NOW!

2007-05-16T14:22:00.000+01:00

CROSSRAIL IN WOOLWICH

YIPEE!

and found this on a lamp post on the corner of Plumstead Road and Villas Road, (Its a notice of planned work related to Crossrail)

2007-05-16T10:50:00.000+01:00

QUEEN ELIZABETH HOSPITAL

Came across an article in the Times last Friday about our local Hospital and have to say I found it all rather disturbing. If you want to read the full version, just click here. However to sum up, it seems that QEH is 'technically' bankrupt. What exactly that means, who knows, surely you are or you're not!! It's all down to the PFI contract, which was used to build QEH in 2001. The repayments on the contract mean that the hospitals fixed costs (things they have to pay for, before they treat a single patient) are double those of other hospitals, but the money they get for treating patients does not take these extra costs into account, so if you go to QEH for treatment they have 6% less money to look after you. This makes me wonder what they are cutting back on.

I have to come clean at this point that I am not a fan of the place, ever since they nearly killed a friend of mine through incorrect treatment, which they then lied through their teeth about, to try and cover up their ineptitude. But I digress.

The really stupid thing is that in order to try and solve the accounting problem, patients will be directed away from financially prudent hospitals, and directed towards the ones which signed dodgy PFI deals and don't necessarily have the money to do the job properly. This seems to be the economics of the madhouse and if nothing is done the problem will go on for 30 years or so! By which time no doubt, the building will be in such a poor state it will need to be replaced with the help of a new PFI.
So if you have ever have the misfortune to go to QEH you will find one thing they don't spend much on is the food. I don't think I have ever seen such unappetising fare and meager portions this side of a workhouse. I was so glad I was only visiting, would starve if I were admitted.

2007-05-11T15:09:00.000+01:00

ENGLAND, SCOTLAND, PLUMSTEAD, GLYNDON

Came across this post on a bulletin board

'Plumstead, Is Plumstead rough??????????? God heavens yes!!!!!! you have Barnfield estate along plumstead common road! you cant get any more violent! further along you have Woolwich common estate - again very violent! further into woolwich you have Conaught estate - full of Junkies! Cardwell in Woolwich - i bet its still rough even with new houses!SE18 is just one huge dump!!!!! AVOID THIS PLACE LIKE THE PLAGUE! especially if you have kids!!!!!!! i moved to Scotland to escape that madness! i know all the hooligans of Se18 and i'm still young enough to still know they are still out giving it loads of grief - AVOID!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!'

Obviously the writer was not too keen on the area!! But a few thoughts spring to mind, firstly, only one of the examples could even remotely be described as being in Plumstead (Barnfield). Secondly the writer clearly has some issues with Council Estates. I take it he or she is not a fan. Thirdly, who in their right mind would want to go and live in Scotland, which has one of the lowest life expectancies in Europe, is in near perpetual darkness for 3 months of the year and whose greatest addition to cuisine in the 20th Century was the fried Mars Bar.

Anyway I think that the writer has rather jumped from the frying pan into the fire if this report in the Times is to be believed.

'Scotland tops list of world's most violent countries'
By Katrina Tweedie '
A UNITED Nations report has labelled Scotland the most violent country in the developed world, with people three times more likely to be assaulted than in America. England and Wales recorded the second highest number of violent assaults while Northern Ireland recorded the fewest. The study, based on telephone interviews with victims of crime in 21 countries, found that more than 2,000 Scots were attacked every week, almost ten times the official police figures. They include non-sexual crimes of violence and serious assaults. Violent crime has doubled in Scotland over the past 20 years and levels, per head of population, are now comparable with cities such as Rio de Janeiro, Johannesburg and Tbilisi. '

But enough about Scotland save to say it is my sincerest belief that England should relinquish ownership immediately and grant them their freedom.

But on to maligned Council Estates in Plumstead, although not mentioned earlier, one of the largest is Glyndon, which I walk through to get to and from work. I don’t live there and I am sure it’s not perfect, but it is a pleasant place, every morning I see any litter being picked up, on the way home lots of kids are playing happily. There are lots of trees and green spaces. The Council has gone a good job landscaping the area. I have never had one bit of trouble while walking through there (been doing so for 20 years now) , so I thought I would share a few Glyndon pics with you. Don’t expect you would want to go there for a day out, but don’t avoid it because some of the people might not have much money!! It is a nice place.

And best of all they have a Temple dedicated to Me, my very own Temple!!

The Si (bonetic) Temple.
They love me on the Glyndon.

2007-05-11T09:49:00.000+01:00

CHIMNEY POTS OF PLUMSTEAD

Single

Double

Stunted

Tall

Coming soon...............

Dr. Potts of Plumstead

2007-05-07T09:24:00.000+01:00

PCEG MEETING 6th May 2007

Went to my first PCEG meeting yesterday, have to say that I enjoyed it, lots of friendly people there committed to making PC a better place for all of us. As with any voluntary group, they can always do with more help so if any of you can spare some time to get involved that would be great.
I am not putting up this post in any official capacity, but just thought I could let people know of a few things that PCEG is up to at the moment, as some of you may want to get involved. So in no particular order.

1. DOG POOH!!

The group has in the past had a campaign to highlight this problem, but that was several years ago.

" The group held a "dog-poo awareness day" in which we flagged over 900 offending "items" on the Plumstead Commons, hoping to bring dog-owners to a state of conscience about the extent of the problem."

Now they are looking at a combination of something similar, combined with pressure on the council to enforce the by-laws, this may, however be a problem as the council apparently only has one dog warden for the whole borough, and if this post on Greenwich Watch (05/03/2007) is to be believed, the by-laws have apparently lapsed.

"There was it seems a local Bye Law that allowed for prosecution but it expired last year. Our readers will be glad to hear that the Bye Law - when it did exist - was so effective it secured the prosecution of a grand total of zero offenders. Apparently this was because there were rarely any witnesses to the act itself - which is understandable as, let's be honest, you'd have to be pretty strange to want to watch a dog empty its bowels.

Never fear though, for whilst all dog owners can currently allow their four legged friends to defecate all over the Borough with impudence, the Council is looking at "options" available to it which will include a "strategy" for solving the problem. The Council expects to "allow authorised officers to issue on the spot fines to offenders" and it will be a "co-ordinated response".

If this is the case all the more reason to get involved, because if we don't nothing will happen.

2. Summer events on the Commons

PCEG always has a stall at the Make Merry festival (Saturday 9th June, Plumstead Common, 12 noon-5pm) where you can chat to members, buy lovely plants, take part in a raffle or two, maybe win a bike to get around our lovely area, and even join up, it only costs £4 to become a member

They are also hoping to be represented at some of the other events on the Commons this summer, these are:-

Vaisakhi Mela (Sunday 20th May, Winns Common (10am-7pm, though if we can get a stall, I expect PCEG will be there in the afternoon, If anyone knows who to contact about this festival and whether it is possible to get a stall there, please contact me, my e-mail is at the top of the page.

Asian Mela (Sunday 24th June, Plumstead Common 10.30am-8pm, but we hope to be there daytime)

Great Get Together (Saturday 30th June, Winns Common 11am-5pm)

3. Graffiti

For regular readers, you may remember that I signed up to PCEG, to help with this plague on the area, have still not got my tin of paint for the Heavitree Garages, but it is on its way. which is good 'cos last Thursday the goodwork done by 'cleansweep' was undone by another attack.

I was also really upset to see graffiti had been sprayed on the Tennis Courts opposite the garages, which is a real shame as they are a great asset to the Common, well used, well constructed and until now largely untouched by vandalism.

I would hate for them to become just another piece of decaying Plumstead Common infrastructure. One piece of good news is that the Local police SNT (safer neighbourhood team) has made Criminal Damage one of its 3 top priorities for the next few months following pressure from PCEG and Nick Day.

4. The old Post Office

(yes I know it has had new windows since this pic was taken!!)
There still seems to be much conjecture and little hard evidence as to what is happening here, beyond the fact that it appears to be being put back into use, though exactly what no one seems to know for sure!! (answers on a postcard please!!)

5 Prince Albert

Some controversy here so don't want to stir up a hornet's nest as I am a new member, save to say that given the councils schizophrenic attitude to the building, PCEG have asked the council to look into the possible incorporation of the existing building into the proposed new development at Plumstead Manor school. I may do a separate post some time saying what I think (for what it's worth).

So that's about it, as i said at the beginning, this is not an official PCEG communication, nor an exhaustive list of what happened, I hope I have not got anything wrong or upset anyone, let me know if I have, and if you want to get involved then join up!!

Got to tweak this a bit and add a few more links etc. but off over to see my dad now so will publish anyway and update later, not proof read so feel free to correct my English!!

2007-05-02T14:04:00.000+01:00

London Marathon 2007

I am sure most of us saw pictures of the 34,000 runners who took part in this years marathon. In amongst that throng was my friend and colleague Russ who is also a fellow Plumstead Common resident. As with many of the competitors, Russ was running to raise money for charity, but unlike many of the runners who were raising money for well know causes such as Breast cancer (and good luck to those people) he was running for a little known charity called ‘Wells for India’.

Russ the runner!!
Russ is one of the nicest people you could ever hope to meet, so to do my bit in a little tiny way to help him out I thought I would find out a bit about Wells for India and write about what they do.

The first thing to say is that they are a very small charity, but what they do makes a huge difference to the people that they help. Their work is based in the Rajasthan area of North West India. This is a very dry and very poor part of the country. We hear a lot these days about how well India is doing economically (which is great) but all that development is not evenly spread and it is a sobering thought that 1/3 of the worlds poorest people live in India. Rajasthan is about the same size as the UK with a population of 60million, but there the similarities end. It basically only rains in the summer, and then not that much! 15 million people live in poverty, in this case that means absolute rather than not being able to pay their Sky TV subscriptions. 11% of children die before they get to 5 years old and 50% suffer from malnutrition.

It is easy to become immune to these kinds of statistics or to think the problems are so big that nothing we can do will make a difference. The great thing about Wells for India is that it disproves this notion, which is one of the things which attracted Russ to the charity. A relatively small amount of money raised in this country goes a very long way to helping a large number of people in a big way in India.

Their website is really good and goes into a lot of detail about how they help people to manage water resources, so that they can grow more food and have access to good clean drinking water throughout the year. Please if you have time take a look at their website, and maybe tell your friends about it, I have to thank them for the pictures of their’s I have used.

And finally well done to Russ who raised over £2000 by running the Marathon.

2007-04-30T21:44:00.000+01:00

PLUMSTEAD PUPPIES

My friend Marc is taking a general interest course at Greenwich Community College in web design and he was a bit stumped as to what to make his website about. In the end, as a bit of fun he decided to dedicate the site to the pooches of Plumstead.

So here a a few pics of Chelsea and Charlton (the Labs, and their friend Charlie the Staffie having a frolic on the Common this morning.

If anyone has got any pictures of their 'best friend' and they want their doggie immortalised on the Plumstead Puppies website. Then please e-mail them to me, with a few details names, breed, likes/dislikes etc. and they will forever be a part of the world wide web. My e-mail is sibonetic@hotmail.com.

2007-04-28T22:39:00.000+01:00

As I am sure you know this is Halifax Bank of Scotland, one of our finest UK financial institutions (I hope no one thinks I am being serious). Well recently I was able to extract £125 from them which they had ripped off from me when I paid off my mortgage last year.

If any one reading this has re-mortgaged or paid off a mortgage in the last few years then the thieves who are the UK commercial banking sector have almost certainly ripped you off too. It's all to do with them inflating the charges to end your mortgage with them, in my case from £100 to £225, hence the sweet little cheque for £125. You can find out how to get your money back here.

But don't wait for them to do the honourable thing and pay you back the money they swindled you out of, 'cos you will be waiting for ever. You have to claim it back, it took me 2 phone calls, despite being promised the money after the first call, but two calls to get money out of a bank is not that bad I suppose!!

The good guy in this instance is HSBC who have never charged an admin exit fee.

2007-04-28T22:31:00.000+01:00

Chelsea, with her partner in crime Charlton

2007-04-25T09:53:00.000+01:00

Saved for the Nation???

Unfortunatly due to work committments (I finish at 10pm on a Tue!) I was unable to get to the meeting about changes to the Plumstead Common Conservation Area. I did however read through the Proposals . Page 52 makes interesting reading as it contains a list of local buildings which should be added to the list of those worth preserving, coming in at no. 7 on the list is the Royal Albert public house.
Now, as the address given is Plumstead Common Road, rather than Old Mill Road, it may be that they mean the Prince of Wales.
But, if the name is correct, then the Pub they want to preserve is the very same one the council have put a compulsory purchase order on in order to demolish, so that Plumstead Manor school can expand. (see Greenwich Watch

YOU COULDN'T

MAKE IT UP

If on the other hand, they want to save the Prince of Wales, then they don't know it's name!

Page 45 also has an interesting take on preservation stating that 'Old doors should be replaced and not repaired'!!

2007-04-23T13:10:00.000+01:00

PLUMSTEAD COMMON CONSERVATION AREA

For those of you interested in proposed changes in the Plumstead Common conservation area there is a meeting tomorrow (Tuesday 24th April) at the Slade Hall, Erindale, Plumstead from 4-7pm. You can also view the proposals here.

One interesting part of the document states. 'There are a dramatic series of surprise views from the Common to the south yielding glimpses of the old village of Plumstead, the River Thames estuary, and extensive panoramas of East London and beyond.'

As you can see, one of these 'surprise views' is from the top of Burwash Road (above), near the western end of the Common, where I live. Unfortunately some hooligan has build a dirty great block of flats, obscuring the view. So I am hoping to discuss with the Councils Conservation officers the removal of the aforementioned flats, preferably with dynamite, and also to explore the possible prosecution of those responsible, oh dear that seems to be the council, so not much luck there then I suppose.

DYNAMITE anyone?

At least they are opposing the new 20 storey Elm Grove House in Plumstead.

2007-04-18T21:40:00.000+01:00

NOWHERE TO EAT

Read this comment over on

Plumsteadshire

'Last night there was a mouse in my house and I didnt fancy eating in but there was nowhere for me to pop too locally so I starved (literally)..'

Don't think Plumstead Common is quite as bereft of eating places as the writer suggests, got a suggestion for anyone who doesn't fancy cooking, one night, who wants good food, a friendly atmosphere, excellent service and somewhere that doesn't break the bank. That is the Capital Noodle Bar, 42-44 Plumstead Common Road. Don't be put off by the slightly care worn exterior, as new signage is about to go up, they are just waiting for the carpenter.

Inside it is spotless, not just the dining area, but throughout (I checked the council's latest inspection report) and they once again received the council's food hygiene award in December 2006, something not all local establishments have got.
The service is excellent, Yen (the manager) and her team will quickly and efficiently bring you what you want from their extensive menu, but don't be bound by that as they are quite happy to bring what you want, the way you want it. I, being a devout carnivore always insist on no peas or carrotts in my Curry (mixed meat is my favourite).
Yen (very much in charge)
Don't worry about the location, right next to the Barnfield Estate, I have been going there every week for the last 3 years without incident, and anyway it is very popular with the local constabulary!!
They have an excellent range of Side dishes, I particularly like the Spicy Chicken Wings, but be warned, it is best to share, as you get loads for £3.30. All the main courses can come with Noodles, Vermicelli, Ho Fun, or Fried or Steamed Rice. as well as the aforementioned Curry, the Singapore Fried Vermicelli is excellent. If you fancy something a bit different, especially on a cold day, try one of the main course soups, I guarantee you won't need a starter as they are huge and come steaming hot. Main courses are £3.30-£3.80 including rice etc. They do take away orders, but not home delivery (020 8855 8668) but my advice is to eat in as the atmosphere is great and it has got to have the widest range of people from all sections of our community eating there. As for drinks it is fully licensed, but I go for the excellent freshly squeezed fruit juice (£1.50) and Chinese Tea (as much as you want at 80p per person!).
As the weather is great, if you live anywhere around the Common it is a lovely walk to get there, try it, I am sure you won't be disappointed. If you live nearer the High Street, don't despair as The Red Lion Noodle Bar right on the High Street, is just as good and run by Yen's sister!! with the same menu,but a few yummy extras (such as the deep fried Crab's Claws) and they have seats not benches!!

If anyone else wants to recommend somewhere local to eat, I would love to hear about it.

2007-04-17T16:09:00.000+01:00

Because they clean

graffiti rather well!!

NEWSFLASH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The power of the internet (perhaps), only 2 working days after my post, (and only 1 day after writing nice things about the Council), and lo and behold shabby, decrepit, but Graffiti FREE garages, so well done to GC and Cleansweep, who were hard at work at 8.30 this morning. Am just waiting for PCEG to give me my tin of paint!! To help keep them this way.

2007-04-15T08:47:00.000+01:00

Because some things
they do rather well!!

Am new to this blogging thing, but have done a few posts now, and was looking though what I have written and got a bit concerned that some of it was a bit too negative. Thought I might be coming across a 'ANGRY' of Plumstead Common. I also thought that, what with a link to

Greenwich Watch

on my blog and some of the comments I have made, people might mistake me for an obsessive Council hater. The reason that I have Greenwich Watch as a link is two fold. firstly they very kindly put a link to my blog on their site and secondly, as we do live in a one party state in Greenwich it is a good outlet for an alternative point of view.

Greenwich Council has only ever been controlled by Labour and that concentration of power has dangers. I do not make this as an anti Labour comment, but a general one. look how power corrupts it it stays in the same hands too long. Margaret Thatcher got so out of touch with reality that she introduced the Poll Tax, New Labour's obsession with ID cards looks like doing the same for them and Ken Livingstone (who I really admire) will, if he stays as Mayor for too long, eventually raise tax rates so high that no one will bother to work, because he is addicted to spending.

Nevertheless just because power corrupts, it doesn't mean that everything goes bad (with the possible exception of Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe!!). Margaret Thatcher's Government which I personally loathed with a passion unmatched by anyone before or since, did brilliant undogmatic work in controlling the Aids epidemic, the effects of which can still be seen today in the relatively low infection rates found in this country. New Labour has guided this country to the longest period of uninterrupted growth in its history, a period in which every other major industrialised country has had a recession. And Greenwich Council..................Well to get to the point, I resolved to write about what the Council does well.

So this got me thinking, I need to write about things I have some experience of, being that I do not have children, am fortunate enough to be working and earning enough not to need benefits, and I buy books rather than borrow them! This gets me down to I walk and drive round the borough and I get my bins emptied. About the same time as I was musing away to myself I was getting ready to do the ironing while watching a few episodes of 24 on DVD.

So I turned on the TV and caught most of

Tonight with Trevor McDonald

It was rubbish, sorry it was about rubbish, and was actually rather good. This got me thinking that my experience of the council waste collection service is actually 1st class.

I have lived her for 20+ years and to my recollection they have never missed a collection. If I have more rubbish than can be fitted in the bin they have always taken it all away without complaint. They have never asked for money at Christmas. They still collect general refuse weekly, despite having introduced 2 weekly recycling collections. The recycling is really easy as it all goes in one bin so no one has an excuse not to do it.

When I see programmes like 'Tonight' and hear of experiences of people living in other Boroughs like Croydon (where the Refuse service sounds like it is run by the Gestapo, but with the efficiency of a failed state, and the recycling system seem to have been thought up by the people who write the instruction leaflets for cheap electrical goods).

I say thank you Greenwich Council for a Rolls Royce service and long may it continue.

2007-04-12T10:12:00.000+01:00

GRAFFITI

Graffiti seems to be on the up at the moment, took this pic this morning while taking Chelsea and Charlton for their morning constitutional. Its the Garages at the back of Heavitree Road, by the Tennis Courts.

I know that PCEG perform sterling efforts in painting over these 'tags', (think that is the correct term), but the problem currently seems to be overwhelming. However overstretched the council claim to be I really think they should be more on top of the problem. Especially in this instance, as it is their garages which are the eyesore!! As far as I can tell only one is actually in use, and the rest are in an advanced state of disrepair.

I am fed up with the council on the one hand saying, and I quote 'Greenwich has this year set one of the lowest Council Tax increases in London' and on the other saying they have no money to do anything. Either they should spend my money more efficiently, or for god's sake put up the council tax, so they have got the money to improve the area and deal with problems like Graffiti. Just letting things slide, only encourages the vandals. What's the point of a low council tax if the place is going to rack and ruin?

I have got one suggestion, how about pulling down the garages an replacing them with a Cafe on the Common!!

Now if I was to leave it there, someone (probably from PCEG) would get back to say that this is a community problem and what am I doing about it, and they would have a valid point. So I have resolved to pull my finger out and have already downloaded my application form to join PCEG and will send it off today. If you want to do the same then you can find the form at the end of their most recent newsletter, just click here

PCEG Newsletter

NEWSFLASH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The power of the internet (perhaps), only 2 working days after my post, (and only 1 day after writing nice things about the council), and lo and behold shabby, decrepit, but Graffiti FREE garages, so well done to GC and Cleansweep, who were hard at work at 8.30 this morning. Am just waiting for PCEG to give me my tin of paint!! To help keep them this way.

Chelsea loves the Common almost as much as she loves food!!!

2007-04-11T09:17:00.000+01:00

The Old Post Office

Over on the excellent

Plumpsteadshire Pangloss has asked if anyone knows the plans for the old Post Office on the corner of Warwick Terrace and Waverley Cresent (above). I have scoured the planning applications on Greenwich Council's website, but can't find anything. Should we do an online poll as to the best use? Pangloss favours a Jazz Cafe, I think I would go for reasonablly priced Bistro. If you are on the inside track on this then please let us know.

UPDATE!!! 17/04/2007

Now with shutters!! Though not seen a planning application for them.

2007-04-09T22:09:00.000+01:00

While waiting for my food to arrive at the fabulous Capital Noodle Bar in Plumstead Common Road. I was flicking through one of the thoughtfully provided newspapers and came across this article. You may wonder what relevance this has to The good people of Plumstead. Well not a huge amount unless you have boys who want a decent choice of non bigoted secondary schools to go to.

By MICHAEL LEA
Political Correspondent
April 07, 2007

Lesbian teacher's £20k payout

A LESBIAN teacher won £20,000 compensation after being told she couldn’t have PATERNITY leave.

But another woman teacher who was RAPED by a 12-year-old pupil received just £11,000.

The cases emerged yesterday as it was revealed that payouts to teachers hit £20million last year.

Awards were made for reasons ranging from violent attacks at school to accidents and unfair dismissal.

The lesbian teacher wanted time off to help her partner give birth — but this was refused by the Roman Catholic school where she worked.

It said her lifestyle was “unacceptable” and warned she would be dismissed if she did not find another job immediately.

The unnamed teacher quit, but the National Union of Teachers took up her case.

The NUT won her £20,000 for breach of sexual orientation, paternity and adoption leave regulations.

That award was almost DOUBLE the compensation given to a teacher after a boy at her school raped her, then escaped in her car.

Graham Clayton, senior lawyer at the NUT, said payouts in criminal cases were not always satisfactory.

He added: “In some cases these do not always produce the kind of justice we think is justified.”

Tories branded the difference in payouts “perverse”. MP Philip Davies said: “Political correctness has taken over.

“We have got ourselves into an offensive situation when it is deemed twice as serious for a lesbian to be denied some time off as it for a teacher to suffer the physical and mental horror of rape.”

Well lets get one thing out of the way first of all, I think it is disgraceful that the poor woman who was raped and had her car stolen only got £11,000 compensation. This is the fault of the way in which Criminal injuries compensation is calculated. The issue of the apalling treatment of a teacher by a Roman Catholic school is a wholly separate issue, and is the one which has implications for the good people of Plumstead. Unfortunatly the Sun tried to link two separate issues in order to ilicit a homophobic response. It is sad that a Tory MP fell for this and just goes to show that the 'nasty party' is alive and well, despite David Cameron's attempts to drag the Conservative Party kicking and screaming into the 20th Century. (alas getting them into the 21st is probably beyond him).

What the rent a quote Tory hack did was to trivialise what had happened to the lady in question, she was not just 'denied some time off'. She was denied equal treatment, to which she is entitled to under the law, and was threatenen with the loss of her career, not because there was anything wrong with her teaching, but because the narrow minded biggoted attitude of her employer. I think the school was lucky to get away with only having to pay £20,000 compensation.

If this incidence of blatent discrimination and Homophobia were an isolated incident it would not be that much of an issue, however the reason why the school thought it was acceptable to behave the way it did is because it is a Catholic school. The advice of the Catholic Church is that homophobic bullying should not be mentioned in a schools anti-bullying policy. So I checked our local Catholic school's website,

St Pauls Academy

and sure enough, there is a mention of racism ('racist remarks'), but a big fat silence on homophobia. Why does this matter? Because in 2004 the Council forced the run down and eventually the closure of Abbey Wood School, so they could give the site to an expanded Catholic school. This means that if you have sons going to secondary school and you want them to get a education free from discrimination and biggotry, they can't go to Eaglesfield, because it has closed, Woolwich Polytechnic School has moved to Thamesmead and Abbey Wood School is closed to new admissions.

Quite why Greenwich Council thinks it acceptable to impose biggoted and medieval attitudes on local children is quite beyond me. It is about time that so called faith schools were given the boot and consigned to the dustbin of history where they belong.

2007-04-06T21:23:00.000+01:00

Plumstead's latest celebrity!!
Alfie, fresh from his latest media appearance in

Alfie Wednesday, 28 March 2007 Age: 3

Breed: West Highland white terrier

Likes: Goat’s milk, house guests, chasing squirrels up trees and having his belly stroked

Dislikes: Cigarette smoke, foxes in the garden and going to the vet

Owner: G, London, SE18

Now Alfie would like to show you some pictures form his latest photo shoot:-

Alfie is out to prove he is not the only Plumstead Celebrity, and is available for Weddings, Christenings, store openings etc.

His famous show 'An audience with Alfie, Plumstead's hardest Westie' is guaranteed to fill any venue.

Located as he is at his Plumstead Villa 'Doggietreat Towers'. He can easily get to you for a personal appearance.

Coming soon Alfie's latest Movie 'Plumstead, Common get me (if you think you're hard enough)

Or read his autobiography 'Lock, Stock and two Smoking Doggie Biscuits.

2007-04-05T22:24:00.000+01:00

Elm Grove House
Was whiling away the hours yesterday, looking up what's new on
Plumpsteadshire
when I came across this

The Plumster said...: 'Yes, they're building a new tower block of luxury flats next to 'The Rad' (hideous yellow building to those ex Claphamites)...........'

some what intrigued I resolved to find out more, for several reasons, partly because I am obviously in need of friends and a social life, but also because I think everyone else had gone off on their hols early, leaving me with time on my hands at work.

What I discovered was an interesting little spat between the council and the GLA (Greater London Authority) over what to do with the site of the former Elmley Old Peoples Home next to Plumstead Radical Club and opposite the Station. (see Photo above, nipped out from work with camera to take pic)

The plan for the site is a 20 storey block, comprising 119 flats and commercial floorspace. Artist impressions are also above, taken from the architect's website
alancamp
The developer is a housing association called ASRA (ASRA is not an acronym but means shelter in Hindi and Urdu) More information about them can be found here
ASRA

I am not sure what my opinions of the development are, as I have more questions than answers. What I did find out was that there are two very conflicting views of the project.

The GLA, which has endorsed the project feels that it is a high quality scheme, which will aid regeneration in the Plumstead area and that despite it being a very high density scheme its proximity to transport links make this acceptable. Full details of their view can be found here
Elm_Grove_House_Plumstead_Report

On the other hand the scheme has bee rejected by Greenwich Council, the reasons were the scale/bulk of the building was to big, there were too many starter homes (1 & 2 bed flats were about 80% of the total), insufficient parking, and that the proposed density was excessive. You can find full details of their views here
Woolwich and Thamesmead Planning and Environment Committee Minutes 06/12/06

Now I have to say I don't feel that I am a NIMBY kind of guy, and I am certainly not in principle against high rise buildings, in the appropriate setting, which are lived in by people who want to be there. I want Plumstead to benefit from regeneration and that inevitable means change.

The particular location and height of this block I have no issues with as it will not cast a shadow over anyone's home and it is not as tall as 'River Heights' (25 floors) nearby. Neither am I worried about the issues of density, parking etc. as it is a very accessible site, in a CPZ (controlled Parking Zone), which when I have driven past, always seems to have plenty of free spaces. In addition the density seems to be less than the council is proposing to put on top of the Crossrail box in Woolwich, as part of their agreement with Berkley Homes.

My concerns are with the developer and the nature of the scheme and what the end result will be. I am all for an ethnically diverse community otherwise I would not have lived happily in Plumstead for the last 20 years, and would long ago have taken the 'white flight' option. My question is, are ASRA, a housing Association which actively targets the housing needs of BME's the most appropriate group to bring about regeneration in the area. Their stated intention is to provide as high a % as possible of social housing, the minimum being 50% but if their finances allow they would like this to be higher. This sounds to me like a de facto council block of flats, which is not something which will bring about regeneration, and the area has 5 other council blocks of flats nearby. So it would hardly be adding to the diversity of the area.

In addition the high % of 1 & 2 beds flats means that a good % will be bought by buy-to-let investors, many of which will, if Councillor Barwick is correct will be sub-let to those on low incomes, who have their rent paid by housing benefit, further increasing the % of social housing in the scheme.

If my fears are correct we will end up with a development which people are forced to live in because they are in housing need, rather than choose to be in because they like great views and don't like gardening! with a focus on housing particular ethnic groups rather than the whole community, repeating all the mistakes of high-rise living and social housing from the 60's.

What do you think?

2007-04-04T14:32:00.000+01:00

The French

As a Meeter and Greeter for Plumstead's largest employer, I am used to dealing with the diverse and colourful local community, but I must admit one recent phenomenon I do have trouble with is the French, of whom there appear to be increasing numbers locally.

What I don’t understand is why their first words to you are invariable “I am French……” It throws me every time, am I supposed to be in awe of such a revelation. I know that I always have to resist the temptation to offer my condolences.

Do they expect me to speak to them in French? A tough ask of an Englishman who got unclassified in his O level in 1978.

Does anybody speak French outside of France, and a bit of Switzerland and Belgium, the poor part of Canada and French Ex-Colonies?

Why are so many French people coming to Plumstead?

Would love to know the answer to these questions

2007-04-02T13:07:00.000+01:00

Estate Agent Geography

Poor Pangloss over on plumsteadshire http://plumsteadshire.blogspot.com/ has rather unfairly in my opinion been accused of snobbery, because he highlighted some of the contrasts between the Common and the High Street (as have I). But I think that of lot of this divide is not created by people, but rather by Estate Agents (the two groups being mutually exclusive of course).

I was prompted by this comment from dave:-

"The divide only exists to those who live to the south. Snobs who call the southside 'Upper Plumstead' when no such place exists. "

To which I posted this rather tounge-in-cheek answer:-

I think you are mistaken, Upper Plumstead does not exist, that area is now Shooters Hill Slopes, Plumstead Common only starts north of the Common and goes all the way down to the High Street, and Plumstead is a couple of roads between the High Street and the Railway Line.

But this got me thinking that there must be other areas enlarging/shrinking being created or perhaps being erased from the map entirely, if this process continues you can imagine a map of SE London as Dulwich merges seemlessly with Greenwich/Blackeath and on into Sidcup and beyond, as Peckham, Woolwich, Plumstead et al. disapear.

Blackheath seems to get closer to Charlton and Shooters Hill by the Day, Shooters Hill seems poised to reach the Thames. West Greenwich has reduced East Greenwich to a few square metres of land, when combined with the pressure from Westcombe Park and the Penninsular. North Thamesmead has vanquised practically all other parts of the town.

If you have any other example of areas moving/changing at the whim of Estate Agents descriptions I would love to hear them

2007-03-30T11:48:00.000+01:00

Plumstead Common or High Street

In case anyone has been following some other blogg threads on Plumsteadshire re:- Crime and the percieved fear of crime. I published some stats on Crime in Plumstead that I got from the Mets website http://www.met.police.uk/crimefigures/datatable.php?borough=rg&period=year

This led some people to believe that the stats were only for the Common not the High Street, so have downloaded Map of Plumstead Ward (above) and as you can see it includes all of the High St. from the station to the edge of Bosall Woods. The only bit of Plumstead not included is the western end of the Common which is in Glyndon Ward.

There seems to be a lot of debate about the relative merits of the Common vs. the High Street, so I thought I might give my thoughts., having lived by the Common for the last 20 years.
Like many of the recent arrivals I was attracted by the fact I could buy a House for the price of a Flat in any other part of London (not much change there then!!)

The Common is Green has lots of trees and in summer a lot of youfs hanging around cos they don't have the wit or imagination to do anything more interesting, though in my experience they are quite harmless if not very bright. Lots of dogs with attendant mess. It is a predominatly White area, with some limited evidence of gentrefication. Not many shops, but at least most of the ones that are, are genuine local shops, not faceless chain stores. The good old co-op which at least is ethical if not very efficient and is part of the History of the area (RACS was one of the most important co-operative societies in times gone by). Quite a few indifferent Pubs the odd OK one and a Curry House which is not to bad.

The High Street is shabby, down at heal, poorer, far more ethnically diverse and in some respects a bit of a dump, but on the other hand it has a very good range of shops and eating places serving its community, thought nothing for the middle class arrivals living up by the Common, which is presumably one of the reasons they look down their noses at the area.

I took my Dad (who is 79) and lives in Upper Norwood to the Red Lion Noodle Bar in the High Street and he insisted I take him for a tour round after the Meal, this was 8.30pm.He was really impressed with the area!! He said that the High Street was like High Streets in London used to be, with a range of shops where you could buy things that local people want, rather that the wall to wall estate agents and Restaurants that most London High Streets have become eg Crystal Palace, where he lives. He loved the fact that there were so many people around at that time of night and he didn't feel in the slighest bit fearful.

He also thought the Noodle Bar was fantastic, which is btw a fantastic example of regeneration, if you had ever been to the grotty pub that it replaced you will know what I mean! I suppose some of the new MC from up the Hill will think the Noodle Bar is to cheap to be any good (a 2 course meal for 3 with wine for under £40) and are yearning for some overpriced Italian crap, such as I had the misfortune to be served up on my last visit to Blackheath. But the food is fantastic and the people who run it are lovely.

Well I am rambling on here, to sum up, the Common and the High Street are both GREAT places, no they are not Blackheath or Clapham, they could both do with sprucing up, but both have a lot going for them and in any attempt to go upmarket, lets not throw the baby out with the bathwater and see them turn into yet another soleless middle class getto.

Well, what do you think?

2007-03-29T12:08:00.000+01:00

Tis me
Chelsea, with her partner in crime, Charlton
Chelsea got in the mood for Red nose day