Belmont shaken by apocalyptic-blast

3,000 Stanmore residents were evacuated from their homes on Monday evening (3 Oct) when a large blast tore through Belmont Service Centre, leaving it engulfed by flames.

The explosion, in the storage yard of the centre in Kenton Lane, Stanmore, happened shortly after 6.30pm when a gas cylinder exploded. Many residents reported hearing a "loud bang" followed by a plume of smoke, which quickly dominated the Stanmore skyline.

Shopkeeper Zafar Hansraj, whose Drycleaners is just yards away, said: "We were closing around the time it happened and we saw the black smoke and heard the explosion. It was like a small firework display."

Within minutes three fire engines and emergency teams were at the scene tackling the blaze and a 250-metre exclusion zone was set-up around the Belmont Circle area over fears that a further 25 gas cylinders believed to be stored at the site could also explode. Among the stored cylinders were around five acetylene cylinders, which can be hazardous when exposed to heat. At around 7pm, police began the huge task of knocking on doors to evacuate residents who fell within the exclusion zone.

One evacuated resident, Mr Bhaghesh Shah, from Ventnor Avenue said "Police knocked on my door to say I had to leave. We took refuge in St Anselm's Church hall in Clifton Avenue amid fears of further explosions. The community policeman told me that around 600 homes had been evacuated and that the 3,000 residents were going to community centres across the borough."

Firefighters battled hard before finally getting the blaze under control at 11.30pm. Residents were allowed to return home at this time but fire crews remained on the site overnight as a precaution.

Turan Turan, Station Manager at Northolt Fire Station said "Fortunately the explosion was contained within the storage area.  The explosion and fire caused extensive damage, but fortunately no one was injured. Crews worked incredibly hard to prevent the fire from spreading and managed to cool down the other gas cylinders and in doing so, prevented further explosions."

Despite the explosion gutting the storage yard, destroying six cars and around 100 tyres, and damaging part of the car workshop, Service Centre Manager Kieran McIlroy said he was just glad that no one was injured in the blaze.

He said: "We all finished work around 5.30pm and obviously that was an hour before it happened, so none of the staff were here.  There would have been nothing worse than people getting hurt. Things are replaceable, but people are not."

Police have confirmed investigations are underway to discover the cause of the blaze.

An alternative world? Or is it.... Invest in character

An alternative world, or is it?

2 months on from completing my journalism course and I’ve joined the dole queue stretching from Harrow job centre to Tesco Station Road; former home of the once great Wealdstone Football Club.

Trolleys filled with curry powder and popadoms, most of the current Tesco clientele would be unaware of Wealdstone’s existence, let alone the significance of the Delhi counter situated in the Elmslie End.

above: Elmslie End, Lower Mead, Wealdstone FC - now a Delhi counter

Life could have been so different.

I’ve applied for approximately 152 positions. 5 offered me interviews (albeit 2 were by phone), but no job offers.

In Facebook terms, I’ve ‘poked’ 152 randoms, banged 5 (albeit 2 were phone sex), but none wanted a relationship.

Life works on a law of averages.

Story of my life. If I was a snog, marry or avoid… Pod would be having me as a seedy snog, behind the club, at best.  Not that I’ve complained before. But eventually in life we all want a bit of direction.

The most frequent question I’ve received in my interviews so far is the “why do you want to work for us?” conundrum.  Before I answer that, I have read, in my opinion a lot of disrespectful pieces from ‘in-people’ in the Journalism world saying that they have little time to read through long winded job applications and they want people to “tweet” their application.

If the employer ‘can’t be bothered’ to read my application, I’m dreadfully sorry but, I ‘can’t be arsed’ to apply. Lazy employers. Either that or they’re illiterate. The little Gremlin in the side of their head is requesting an easy way to digest a 150-200-word cover letter and 2-page CV.

It’s contradiction as well, “cover letters are poor and lazily written”… hello!?  A twit [sic] is only 140 characters!  That just promotes lazy. And most of these are married!

And when tackling the aforementioned question, most employers expect some kind of dreamy answer about how the company is ‘going places’ and ‘expanding’… but when was being honest a bad thing?  Can I not just say ‘coz I need the money?’ 

We’re creating a world of robots. Many companies want to ship out the personalities and bring in the wallflowers.

Quite possibly the key to getting a job is imagination. I’ve read this from many employers… “Use your imagination.” Well, I’ve imagined for the past 8-fecking-weeks I’m smoking a Cuban cigar in a recliner chair overlooking the River Thames but it ain’t got me nowhere!  

Credit where its due, I haven’t sat on my arse all this time, I’ve moved to make a cuppa.

And going back on the “what’s wrong with honesty?” point.  At least with me employers know where they stand.

In my last role I was vetted, and this included nosey questions delving into my love life, in my opinion, not their business – but I thought well, if they want honest, it’ll be rude not to. I hit them with every last seedy detail – and then they questioned giving me my DV?  Why?  Because I can tell them something on the house; 9 out of 10 who sat in that seat before and 9 out of 10 who will sit in that seat after, will omit something… And they’ll omit something for fear it will negate their clearance…and the 1 in 10 before, and the 1 in 10 after, are either virgins or ugly or a combination of both.

Anyway, “Loose Women” is due to start – that programme is the definition of false advertising, is it not?  In summary, people should not be fearful to show who they really are, the world is made up of colourful characters – why can’t employers embrace that? 

I’m speaking directly to the Facebook generation who have been told, “kill your ugly babies”, remove the pictures of you on a drunken night out etc… If I was an employer I’d be more concerned if people didn’t have pictures on their Facebook of them painted as a blue smurf, or of them nicking the opposite sex etc. It shows character – something that is clearly lacking amongst our spineless spoon-fed politicians.

Wake up world. Wake up employers. Invest in character!