A collection of bird-related stories –  in the loosest possible sense.

Crowe

First – in case you missed the earlier post, Stephen’s sent me a pic of the basic stage for Les Miserables which is coming for filming this week with Russell Crowe, Anne Hathaway etc etc. Looks like a big prod, so don’t expect much Easter access to ORNC, but plenty of star-gazing and singing along to do. Altogether now, I dreamed a dream in time gone by…

Raven

Secondly Stephen also told me about a rather odd story in the Times a few days ago. One of the ravens at the Tower went missing last year, after the Raven Master allowed some of her flight feathers (which are trimmed to prevent escape) to grow back again. He spent two days in Greenwich, ‘whistling at the trees’ after a Blue Badge Guide at the Observatory reported a ‘large bird’ in the trees outside. It’s is a wonderful image. I do hope he was in full Beefeater regalia. Munin, the bird concerned, flew off and was eventually lured back with a piece of chicken by a chap who’d spotted her in his back garden. It’s a lovely story and I’d give you a link, but I refuse to give Murdoch any cash so can’t actually get behind that pay wall.

Chicken

Ah yes. Continuing the Pier story, Matt from Beware of the Trees tells me ” I had a quick chat with one of the people organising the ferry queues, who told me that everything would be opening this coming Wednesday. Given Byron and F&B now have menus up by the doors, and F&B was full of staff in full uniform having what looked like a dress rehearsal, this seems very possible. It’s seems a bit less likely that Nando’s and Zizzi will be open, but who knows.

In the true spirit of investigative journalism, Matt looked at the relevant company websites, to see if they were offering any confirmation. You’ll be pleased to know that F&B’s claim to be opening in March, and Nando’s are under the impression that they are opening in Greenwich Village.

Nice to see they have aspirations in the Big Apple too…

A small fire in Greenwich Park yesterday, spotted by Matthew.  He tells me it was on the west side of the park, just up the steep hill from the King George St Gate.

The fire brigade, he says, “arrived about 2 minutes after I took this, by which time the fire had reached the path and the large shrub in the top left of the photo was ablaze.”

They suspect a careless smoker either in the park or walking down the pavement on the other side of the railings, chucking a lit fag end into the bushes.

I can’t imagine any Phantophiles being so gauche with their smouldering butts (ooh-err), but as Matthew says, ‘it’s an unpleasant reminder of just how dry everything is at the moment.’

… Andrew’s hat, served with a little sauce on the side.

Toria has just seen actual movement on the Heart of East Greenwich site – a JCB. She says it’s “doing ‘stuff’ (technical term) within the old hospital grounds! It’s moving and everything..”

Can the long-awaited development have actually started at last? That JCB looks a little lonely – but small beginnings…

Steve spotted that Woolwich and Greenwich tunnels now at least have access – though don’t go there expecting to get a ride in the elevator.

The stairs at both sides of Woolwich and Greenwich Foot Tunnels are available 24 hours daily. They’re currently replacing the glass roof and work’s still going on inside, particularly on the lifts but at least there’s no access restrictions now, which is a move in the right direction…

Folks I’ve heard something a bit horrid about a couple of armed robberies that took place over the weekend in central Greenwich. I can’t find any details, but it would seem two violent attacks occurred around the Five-Foot Walk /Pier area, one of which ended with a guy being stabbed in the face when he refused to hand over his watch.

I don’t know what time of day this happened; I’m guessing after dark, by someone taking advantage of the chaotic nature of that area just now – I’m hoping to hear more later – but for now just be a little careful when you’re out and about round there, eh?

Margo tells me that a notice on the bus stop in Greenwich South Street  today says the 386 will not run along South Street from 30th January to, she believes, 14th February. I am assuming it’s road works. I don’t know the alternative route – Google only seems to come up with alterations for the Olympics. Margo’s fed up as a lot of elderly people in sheltered accommodation use the 386 to get to the Vanbrugh Health Centre or QEH, but I guess if it’s roadworks, there’s little the bus company can do. I guess a letter might have been helpful.

Really – what kind of idiot mugs someone in full light of day when they’re a) just round the corner from the local nick and b) next to a butchers where blokes with scary knives work?

I’m pretty fed up today. I was in Royal Hill mere minutes before all the excitement above happened (around 2.30pm) and missed it all. I have to rely on this photo by – well, given the filmstock, let’s just call him ‘Shaw Taylor’ – who kept ‘em peeled and joined the small group of people who witnessed the aforesaid idiot snatch a mobile phone, get chased by a whole bunch of people including Drings staff, get caught, get nicked and get bundled up into a police van within minutes.

You’ll probably have read this elsewhere (Rob over at greenwich.co.uk has a particularly repulsive photo) but the Peninsula Chinese Restaurant in the Holiday Inn building has been fined £54,000 (plus £2,600 costs) and its owners have been banned from running restaurants in Greenwich’s biggest-ever breach of food hygiene (well, biggest that’s ever been caught.)

It’s all a far cry from about ten years ago when I remember friends of mine raving about the place, saying it was the only Chinese restaurant worth going to in the area, it was so authentic,everybody loves it, yada, yada. And they weren’t the only ones – there were queues outside the restaurant of a Sunday lunchtime for the dim sum.

I confess that the only time I went I had a series of dishes consisting of flabby white goo, but I just assumed that that was because I’d either ordered badly or that I didn’t like it because I’m not a huge fan of Chinese food (I eat it, but it’s not my first choice.) But I saw those queues. They were real. At some point this was a destination. And I’m sure I’ve seen queues recently too.

Were the conditions that bad all along? Perhaps the management changed. Certainly they seem pretty unrepentant – they have been fined several times before and pleaded guilty on this one. Mind you it would have been hard to do anything else. Mouse droppings everywhere from the floor to near plates, cling film and even food. Lack of hand washing facilities. A build-up of grease under the cookers. Mouldy vegetables on the floor of the walk-in fridge. They were bang to rights.

And yet Rob tells me that last weekend they were still open. Presumably the lucrative Chinese New Year celebrations made it worth flouting the ban.

It’s pretty easy, I understand, for the owners of banned restaurants to just set up a new company in a different name, shift the assets across and start up again. And although for you and me the fine sounds pretty enormous, for them it’s pretty small. I suppose that if they were to start up again under a new name, the slate would be clean and they could start collecting hygiene breaches from scratch.

Yick.

Colin asks:

“Hey Phantom, what’s going on with Greenwich Freecycle?”

The Phantom replies:

Colin, if there is one thing that you can almost guarantee with any group of people it is that there will be Politics. Some people will think one thing, others will think something else and inevitably things will come to blows. It doesn’t matter how big or small the group – in fact often the smaller the group the more vicious and personal the argument. This usually ends with a split – two groups doing exactly the same thing, both thinking that they’re the ‘real’ thing, and each hating the other’s guts.

While I can’t tell you anything of the politics ‘what’s going on’ (because I don’t know them…) I can tell you that there is now a breakaway group in Greenwich doing the free-cycle thing.

In case you don’t know what the Freecycle movement is, it’s basically a Yahoo Group where people advertise things they no longer need that would otherwise go to landfill and other people who need them take the things off their hands.

I think it’s brilliant and although I’ve only ever got two tomato plants off it, I’ve got rid of all kinds of junk over the years – stuff I don’t need but would have felt ‘guilty’ about chucking away but can give to someone else with an open heart.

Something’s been brewing over the past months between the local administrator and sundry users. I don’t know what it is and I don’t want to know – I certainly don’t want the argument to pop up here, okay?  I get no pleasure for seeing people who I am sure have only good intentions, on both sides, fall out. To be honest I began to weary of the obscure emails I was getting as a member of the mailing list and since it wasn’t my fight anyway, I confess I quietly moved them to my junk folder. So I have to thank Lara for actually continuing to read them and tell me to take a peek at the latest ones.

Suffice to say that this particular spat has got out of hand and the local moderator has been asked to resign from the official movement. She’s upset about this, saying that she’s not had any explanation for the request.

She sent round an email asking that if she started her own version (with a different name) would members be interested, as an extra thing – she’s not interested in all-or-nothing – you could be part of both hers and the official Yahoo group. She presumably got a favourable response as the new group is now up and running.

“This Group is primarily about Recyling items to keep them out of landfill. This site will allow you to Swap Items, and a community cafe to exchange idea’s such as recipies, gardening tips, suggestions, advice and information.”

If you want to try the new group it’s here.

I’m not sure what will happen with official Greenwich Freecycle. Such a shame when things like this, that start out with the very best of intentions, have issues that break up friendships.

This was going on yesterday morning – six police officers in hi-vis jackets hanging around Romney Road, with one at the previous lights armed with a walkie talkie. When I first saw them, they’d stopped a silver car. I was walking through the park and didn’t take much notice. But when I got to the other side of the Queen’s House they’d stopped another silver car. By the time I got to the front of the covered walkway, yet another (also silver) car had been stopped and a tow-truck had pulled up. All the yellow blobs in this pic are police stopping various cars/people.

They were certainly giving any drivers they did stop the full treatment – looks like they’re making this woman touch her toes…

…though thinking about it she’s probably having to prove she doesn’t have any knives down her socks.

I’m not sure what they were doing, but my guess is stopping cars without current tax discs – the policewoman at the previous lights radioing ahead to flag-up vehicles that looked suspicious. Or maybe they just have it in for silver car-drivers.

My pal thought Romney Road an odd place to stop people but I reckon it was deliberate – a good pinch point that at 11.00am was unlikely to create traffic jams and very public indeed.

If it was the tax-disc thing, what surprised me most was the number of people they stopped. They were still there later when I went past again, and still stopping what seemed a disproportionately large number of cars. The tow-truck seemed busy.

Does anyone know if my hunch is right? I’m not going to ask if you were one of the ones who got stopped…

UPDATE – Yes – apparently it was tax discs. Incredibly, I understand from a little Robert-shaped-bird that they caught 45 vehicles. Scary, eh…