80s Magic Shop in Northfields

While at Gunnersbury Boys school in the late 80s in Boston Manor, we’d go into Northfields after school, or I would. Would visit the small magic shop and I’ve been thinking about it over the years.

I watch a lot of Michael Vincent who’s a master at slight of hand

https://www.youtube.com/@MichaelVincentMagic

He’d talk about Alan Alan’s old magic shop and searching for images fine this

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Alan

The inside of the story just gave me images of the Northfields one but I just couldn’t find any images. Someone on Reddit knew it and found some. Unfortunately due to the new stupid ID verification law in the UK (that doesn’t work), imgur is blocked, so I grabbed them off them and have stuck them here.

First image is what the store front changed to (before it shutdown long ago). What I was remembering was the store front of the second image.

Carnival shop in Northfields, long shutdown.
Carnival shop in Northfields, long shutdown.

That 2nd one is the store front I remember from the 80s. I believe its also where I bought my original stripper deck cards (cards that are slightly tapered one end). Its also where we’d pick up the poppers that were popular end of the 80s.

80s Poppers

Barclays Sports Ground – Ealing – Park View Road

Had a vague memory of this but couldn’t remember where it was. Asked my sisters who suggested it was in Ealing. Eventually asking on Reddit and thankfully people knew it, knew its name and where it was. I looked it up, its a shadow of its former self and less grand than my memory was remembering.

All I could remember was the swimming pool outside that we got to use once or twice when my mum did the waitressing for events there. I remember the pool being freezing though. I remember the doors to the main building being all glass and grand but looking at the photos now, that appears to be a false memory.

Apparently it shut down a long time ago. Images taken from web searches but some behind paywalls as everything is an annoying subscription these days.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/EalingHistory/posts/1836037276528676

Barclays Sports Ground Ealing

https://www.flickr.com/photos/8225010@N03/3246787805

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/Park+View+Rd,+London/@51.522229,-0.2976423,17z/data=!4m6!3m5!1s0x4876120f3e8faf93:0xa47bcaa8376d7998!8m2!3d51.5210028!4d-0.2956419!16s%2Fg%2F1tvt9v8d?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI2MDMwNC4xIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D

80s Dance Track I’d been Trying to Find For Years

Was looking for a track on and off for years that was on a mix tape I had in the 80s. A tape a family friends, friend had made who was a DJ. I had the owl noise part in my head and the sax sound.

On an web search for it, I could hear it on Trevor and Simon Montage but Shazam couldn’t pick it up. So I asked on there. Roll on about 5 years later and had no response, so I thought. Then randomly finding that vid again and scrolling the comments I found mine, and found someone had answered and knew the track! So for another 5 years I’d been looking for it when the answer was right there, having been answer 5 years before! I still don’t have comment notifications on, on youtube though 🙂

The track was 808 State – Pacific State

Southall 80s History

Because I’ll forget again, I’m sticking it here. Have tried to link to where I got the images. Due to imgur now banning the UK (because of the stupid age verification law that doesn’t work, they pulled out of the UK), I’m putting the images here for if/when they disappear.

We grew up in Hanwell (we’ve all long left the area). Every year we’d go to the panto at The Beck Theatre (image from https://harrowonline.org/2024/12/17/beck-theatre-in-hayes-saved-but-how-did-we-get-here/)

Image of the front of The Beck Theatre
Beck Theatre

On the drive, we’d drive through Southall Broadway. I was very young then in the early 80s, 8 or 9 and we’d play a game. In the shops on the broadway there was always a little Indian model in certain shops. If you spotted one, you got a point. Roll on 2026 and I thought about this again and couldn’t find any info on it. Couldn’t remember what the model was, just remember it being a small, short model. So I turned to Reddit. Its not all that bad, its useful for asking questions like this (they also helped find the old magic shop that was in Northfields, more on that in another post).

And someone found it or remembered it. It was Air India’s Maharaja mascot. There were of course, larger models that this small one from Ebay as found on this blog post:

https://www.outlooktraveller.com/celebrating-people/air-indias-maharaja-memories-of-a-beloved-mascot

https://www.ebay.com/itm/286680592015

small model of air india's maharaja mascot
Air India Maharaja Mascot

Powershell – Blank AD Profile PATH

<#
.SYNOPSIS
  Clear Home Folder (local path) for each AD user in an OU and export results to CSV.

.PARAMETER SearchBase
  Distinguished Name (DN) of the OU to search.

.PARAMETER WhatIfMode
  If supplied, no changes are actually made.

.PARAMETER CsvPath
  Output path for the CSV file.

#>

param(
    [string]$SearchBase = 'OU=.Users (Role Based),OU=Steven Whiting,DC=whiting-steven,DC=co,DC=uk',
    [switch]$WhatIfMode,
    [string]$CsvPath = ".\HomeFolder_Clear_Report_$(Get-Date -Format yyyyMMdd_HHmmss).csv"
)

# Import AD module
Import-Module ActiveDirectory -ErrorAction Stop

Write-Output "SearchBase: $SearchBase"
if ($WhatIfMode) { Write-Output "WHATIF MODE ENABLED — no changes will be made." }

# Retrieve users
$users = Get-ADUser -Filter * -SearchBase $SearchBase -SearchScope Subtree -Properties homeDirectory,homeDrive,DistinguishedName,SamAccountName

if (-not $users) {
    Write-Output "No users found under the specified OU."
    exit
}

# Results array
$results = @()

foreach ($u in $users) {
    $result = [PSCustomObject]@{
        SamAccountName = $u.SamAccountName
        DistinguishedName = $u.DistinguishedName
        PreviousHomeDirectory = $u.homeDirectory
        PreviousHomeDrive = $u.homeDrive
        Action = ""
    }

    if ($WhatIfMode) {
        $result.Action = "Would Clear"
        $results += $result
        continue
    }

    try {
        Set-ADUser -Identity $u.DistinguishedName -Clear homeDirectory,homeDrive -Confirm:$false -ErrorAction Stop
        $result.Action = "Cleared"
    } catch {
        $result.Action = "Failed: $($_.Exception.Message)"
    }

    $results += $result
}

# Export CSV
$results | Export-Csv -NoTypeInformation -Path $CsvPath

Write-Output "CSV report created: $CsvPath"
Write-Output "Completed."

Server 2022 Activate Directory – Exchange bits

For SMTP bits in AD you need the exchange tools. These are for my notes so make sense to me.

Your account needs to be in the enterprise admins and schema admins group.
You need to install the exchange bits so run this command but you also need to mount an exchange ISO. I used Exchange 2019

d:\Setup.exe /IAcceptExchangeServerLicenseTerms_DiagnosticDataON /PrepareAD /OrganizationName:”Contoso Corporation”

We’re not installing or setting up exchange, just need it to put in all the extra exchange stuff in AD for the mailNickname bits

If you don’t need any of the exchange fields you can ignore all this.

Server 2022 – Disable reboot warning

https://www.softwareok.com/?seite=faq-Windows-Server&faq=19

1.) Method: Group Policy

  1. Open Group Policy Editor :
  • Press Win + R, type gpedit.msc and hit Enter .
  1. Navigate to:
    Computer Configuration → Administrative Templates → System .
  2. Find the policy “Disable shutdown event logging” .
  3. Double click on it and set the policy to “Enabled” .
  4. Click OK and close Group Policy Editor.

SMTP/Alias

For AD SMTP and Alias’

<#
.SYNOPSIS
    Export SMTP addresses (primary + secondary) from AD users.

.DESCRIPTION
    Uses Get-ADUser to collect the 'proxyAddresses' and 'mail' attributes.
    - Primary SMTP is the address with the "SMTP:" prefix (uppercase).
    - Other SMTP addresses are those with the "smtp:" prefix (lowercase).
    - If proxyAddresses is empty, the script will attempt to use the 'mail' attribute as primary.

.PARAMETER OutputCsv
    File path for exported CSV. Default: .\AD-SMTP-Addresses.csv

.PARAMETER SearchBase
    Optional AD container (distinguishedName) to restrict the search.

.PARAMETER IncludeDisabled
    If specified, include disabled accounts as well. By default disabled accounts are excluded.

.EXAMPLE
    .\Export-AD-SMTP.ps1 -OutputCsv C:\temp\smtp-addresses.csv

#>

param(
    [string]$OutputCsv = ".\AD-SMTP-Addresses.csv",
    [string]$SearchBase,
    [switch]$IncludeDisabled
)

# Ensure ActiveDirectory module is available
if (-not (Get-Module -ListAvailable -Name ActiveDirectory)) {
    Write-Error "The ActiveDirectory module is not installed or available. Install RSAT/Active Directory module and run again."
    exit 1
}

Import-Module ActiveDirectory -ErrorAction Stop

# Build filter
$filter = if ($IncludeDisabled) { { } } else { { Enabled -eq $true } }

# Properties we need
$properties = @("proxyAddresses","mail","distinguishedName","samAccountName","displayName","objectClass")

try {
    if ($SearchBase) {
        $users = Get-ADUser -Filter * -SearchBase $SearchBase -Properties $properties
    } else {
        $users = Get-ADUser -Filter * -Properties $properties
    }
}
catch {
    Write-Error "Failed to query Active Directory: $_"
    exit 1
}

$result = foreach ($u in $users) {
    # Some objects may not have proxyAddresses (or not be users) - handle safely
    $proxy = @()
    if ($u.proxyAddresses) {
        $proxy = $u.proxyAddresses
    }

    # Normalize and split SMTP addresses
    $primary = $null
    $others  = @()

    if ($proxy.Count -gt 0) {
        # find exact uppercase SMTP: for primary
        $primaryEntry = $proxy | Where-Object { $_ -like "SMTP:*" } | Select-Object -First 1
        if ($primaryEntry) {
            $primary = $primaryEntry -replace '^[sS][mM][tT][pP]:',''  # remove prefix (case-insensitive)
        } else {
            # no uppercase SMTP found -> try any smtp: entry as fallback
            $fallback = $proxy | Where-Object { $_ -match '^(smtp|SMTP):' } | Select-Object -First 1
            if ($fallback) { $primary = $fallback -replace '^[sS][mM][tT][pP]:','' }
        }

        $others = $proxy |
            Where-Object { $_ -match '^(smtp|SMTP):' } |
            Where-Object { ($_ -replace '^[sS][mM][tT][pP]:','') -ne $primary } |
            ForEach-Object { $_ -replace '^[sS][mM][tT][pP]:','' }
    }

    # If no proxyAddresses, fall back to mail attribute as primary (if present)
    if (-not $primary -and $u.mail) {
        $primary = $u.mail
    }

    # Build object for export
    [PSCustomObject]@{
        DistinguishedName = $u.DistinguishedName
        SamAccountName    = $u.SamAccountName
        DisplayName       = $u.DisplayName
        ObjectClass       = $u.ObjectClass
        PrimarySMTP       = $primary
        OtherSMTPs        = if ($others.Count -gt 0) { $others -join ";" } else { $null }
    }
}

# Export to CSV
try {
    $result | Export-Csv -Path $OutputCsv -NoTypeInformation -Encoding UTF8
    Write-Output "Export completed: $OutputCsv ('$($result.Count) records)'"
}
catch {
    Write-Error "Failed to export CSV: $($_)"
    exit 1
}

Boycott Rockstar

Appears Rockstar, despite claiming their employees leaked info, fired their employees for unionising, it appears. This is illegal in the UK. They are based in Scotland but its increasingly looking like they are claiming leaked info when all fired also happened to be members who recently unisonised.

Claiming leaked info seems far fetched and they are doing more damage to their business now than just accepting the Union.

Everyone should Boycott Grand Theft Auto 6 and all Rockstar games until the staff are reinstated and the union is allowed.