Recently in Avoid ! Category

From the summer of 2009 onwards, a couple of the places mentioned in the original London CyberPunk Tourist Guide have been demolished as part of the re-development of Tottenham Court Road Tube Station

Between Denmark Street and St. Giles Circus, which is where the Charing Cross Road meets Oxford Street and becomes the Tottenham Court Road, there is was a cheap Internet Lounge at 138 Charing Cross Road

This offers offered cheap internet access, and mobile phone unlocking and accessories, and cheap long distance phone calls. Be very careful with your bags, mobile phones,purses, wallets etc, as these are a target for the local thieves. The internet PCs are also rife with various bits of spyware and password sniffers, so do not log into something sensitive or valuable. The internet traffic also appears to be "known to the Police"

Note one of the local "stinkies" peering into the window.

Go past the Internet Lounge, past a locked courtyard entrance marked "Sin" (the main entrance to which is round the corner) and you will pass a basement Comic shop called Orbital Comics at 148 Charing Cross Road,

The subway on the corner, leads into the Tottenham Court Road Tube station, and is ok during the day time, but this whole corner of Andrew Bordes Street is somewhere to avoid if you are on your own at night, as the "Stinkies", crackheads, drunks , and other addicts, trend to gather, just as their ancestors did during the time of William Hogarth.

Opposite the subway is the Astoria music venue, which also has a rich musical history of live performances by famous or soon to be famous bands.

However the whole of the block between Andrew Bordes Street and the Denmark Place alley on the east side of Charing Cross Road in the shadow of Centre Point, and the whole of the block of the Astoria Theatre punk /rock / other music venue on the western side have been demolished.

A couple of views from 10th November 2009:

Internet Lounge demolished.

Andrew Borde Street to Denmark Place alley.

Where the Astoria Theatre used to be.

The Black Sheep Bar,

68 High Street,
Croydon,
Surrey,
CR0 1NA

touts itself as the only "alternative" music venue left in Croydon.

Latitude: N51:22:17 (51.371372)
Longitude: W0:06:02 (-0.100694)

However, possibly due to the malign influence of the nearby Home Office Borders Agency offices, their decision to turn into a private club, which enforces its door policy, not just with bouncers and CCTV surveillance, but also with Photo ID and a Biometric Fingerprint scanning system and (insecure) database, makes it a place to avoid

The appalling Black Sheep Bar biometric membership web page exceeds the bureaucratic requirements of the most repressive of secret police surveillance state dystopias.

George Orwell's Winston Smith did not have to go through fingerprint scanning in order to be sold his Victory Gin !

Welcome to the Black Sheep Bar's website. We are a members only bar, if you are coming down and you aren't already a member please bring photo ID (driving licence or passport) with you to sign up.

The Intouch system is a biometric door entry system (it recognises fingerprints). In order to become a member we require that you have your photo taken and provide a form of identification (driving licence or passport).

The biometric fingerprint club / pub door entry system seems to be the inTouch system, now marketed by idscan biometrics.

The fact that it is relatively cheap (£700 for the software and one fingerprint scanner), but does not offer any built in strong encryption makes it unlikely that it will be installed with sufficient physical security to prevent the entire system being stolen or copied.

To apply for membership we require such personal data as your full name, postal address, telephone number, date of birth, a photograph of you and your finger characteristics. We will occasionally need to collect and use sensitive personal data about you, for example, your conduct in our premises to ensure a safe and pleasant environment for our customers, staff and members of the public.

We collect and use personal data about you for the general provision of our services, we will disclose any data if required to do so by law or to comply with a legal process or where permitted to protect and defend our rights and property and to protect the personal safety of our customers, staff and members of the public. By providing your personal data to us you agree to these terms.

As with all other fingerprint scanning systems used in public places, what about the biological infection risk from bacteria and viruses which will contaminate the fingerprint scanner ?

Fingerprint scanners never get washed or sterilised, do they, so the risk of spreading pandemic infectious diseases like Swine Flu etc. is substantial.

Cyberpunks and any other freedom and liberty loving or public health conscious people should boycott this totalitarian venue in Croydon.

UPDATE: 5th November 2009

If you look up entry Z8210589 for Bossicks's Restaurants Limited / Black Sheep Bar, on the Information Commissioner's Office Register of Data Controllers you will find only one Data Purpose which has been registered.

This was registered back in 2003, presumably before the fingerprint system was installed, and is only for the CCTV surveillance system, so technically this fingerprint system and club membership database is illegal under the Data Protection Act 1998.

Centre Point is the 35 storey 325 foot high skyscraper office block, at the corner of Charing Cross Road, and New Oxford Street, which is the most easily visible landmark in the area.

For years after, Centre Point was was at the centre of controversy, as greedy property tycoon Harry Hyams intentionally kept it unoccupied as values soared against its potential rent yield.

It's construction cost in 1964 was £5.5 million whilst its estimated market value in 1973 was £20 million. Moreover, by keeping it empty it was not liable for rates!

GPS grid coordinates:
Latitude: (WGS84) N51:30:58 ( 51.516128 )
Longitude: (WGS84) W0:07:48 ( -0.129875 )

See also this semi-live BBC Jam cam traffic camera image (usually updated every few minutes, unless there is actually some interesting incident, when the feed is censored) from the Oxford Street / Centre Point camera, which usually points south, with the notorious "stinkie" subway corner visible in the top left..

UPDATE 20th August 2009 - everything from Andew Bordes Street to what was the Internet Lounge has been demolished as part of the new Tottenham Court Road Tube and Cross Rail station development..

The subway on the corner, leads into the Tottenham Court Road Tube station, and is ok during the day time, but this whole corner of Andrew Bordes Street is somewhere to avoid if you are on your own at night, as the "Stinkies", crackheads, drunks , and other addicts, trend to gather, just as their ancestors did during the time of William Hogarth.

Update 20th August 2009: this whole block has now been demolished as part of the re-development of Tottenham Court Road Tube Station