Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Plumstead links

I am going to stick a few on the sidebar thingy when I get time. Don't know why really...apart from the obvious. Now this one I think I may have referred to before its a kind of residents association/activist one with some wistful vision stuff thrown in. The vision usually takes the form of a jazz cafe which doesn't quite work for me - like I haven't the foggiest what one is. A kind of Milk Bar but replacing the Skiffle band with an ipod-type set-up oozing Charlie Parker or something. I have enjoyed visiting sibonetics site...it made me feel welcome in a funny kind of way. He has had a bit of a dispute with another blogger recently which reminds me of what our neighbour said when we moved in "you can hear a pin drop most of the time round here but it can suddenly get very noisy".

Then there's arthurpewty and his amazing maggot sandwich.
He's not exactly Plumstead but near enough and is forthright about some of the local ethnic groups - one in fact- the baseball hat wearing youth . He likes Linux too so might be interested to hear I am writing this using a Live CD because I can't boot Ubuntu yet again. Like sibonetic he likes Doctor Who too.

There's a forum thing going on that I've only just noticed - it styles itself as Plumstead Common for some reason. There's a bit of an upstairs downstairs thing going on in Plumstead.

And finally another photographer though I'm not sure how active he is at the moment. I think he's the only one of the blogs representing the Asian community here.

All worth a visit if you want to smell out the area. So to speak.
At various points in this blog I have pasted up some stats from the Quit-o-meter that ticks away (whenever I am in XP) adding up all the minutes of life and pennies of pounds saved as a result of My Big Give Up. Perhaps we need one that operates on a national scale that we could start running from 01 July - the Nation's Big Quit. It should have things like Lives Saved of course and number of pence not spent on fags but should also include perhaps Amount of Tax Increased in Other Areas to Cover Shortfall, Amount of Additional Health Expenditure as people's decripitude is extended further and Number of Humorless Morons Stomping Around in an Oppression Frenzy.

What the country needs is a ban on Revolting Sniffers of the Train. (Is it something to do with South East London or have I forgotten my commutes from the South and West?) I have been lumbered with 3 in the last two weeks. Yuk.

Monday, June 11, 2007


Another Plumstead evening
Originally uploaded by Boxley
Another Plumstead Evening

The big move has taken place. R is still a bit of a stranger to these parts spending more time back at the flat preparing to get a tenant in.

I am listening to a nature prog on Radio 4 in the new "Media Centre" room (the old pc and a portable radio). As I do our family of blackbirds chirp merrily outside.

I think there is a bit of wild life inside the house as well but that's another matter.

Tomorrow I will give this commuting thing a crack after a break of more than a year.

Smoking will be banned inside all stations on July One. Not that there is much 'inside' to your average overground station. It will apply throughout which I think is a bit unfair.

One of the great things about smoking was as an occupational therapy when the rubbish railway companies were proving they were rubbish. Now the smokers must move themselves beyond the boundary of the station. Stand on one side of the line and blow in towards the station and you're fine. Stand on the other and blow out away from the station and you risk being bundled into a van and gang-raped by the fag police.

These risks are no longer mine I am glad to say - but they are entirely man-made risks.

Why add to the stresses of life with all these petty laws?

(Thanks to Boxley at Flickr for the pic- very lovely it is too)