Alex K

@Nick -- what you said -- but "freely"? Too many CCTV monitors for that to apply any more. If you meant "footpaths" and "coastal access", then apology offered, the right to roam is something that I appreciate.

Thank you all. Not break-ins so much as walk-ins -- unlocked back-garden gate, unlocked patio doors. OK. Leaving off-street access unsecured is a behaviour that I can choose not to adopt. (It's about making one's place slightly harder to crack than are one's neighbours'.) We've had an idyll here for the ten years plus that I've been around. We can get back to that again, I trust and hope.

Thank you, James. A neighbour on the DJ side (I'm even-numbered; DL) e-mailed me earlier today with the news of ANOTHER event YESTERDAY night -- Shaw Road on 26 March, Abbotswood Road on 28 March. Too close, too close. **edited for grammar**

More about this, please -- window / door left open? True "break-in"? Ground storey or ladder used? Access through garden or front of house? From around the corner in Abbotswood Road, and nervous...

Good question. Business takes me to the States every so often where the things are easily found and MUCH cheaper (large packets! yes!) than the half-a-handful-at-a-time I used to be able to buy here. Not a solution for everyone, to be sure, but...

Thank you. I like being told about things such as this.

And that all the way up at the end of Abbotswood, at Shaw Road, where no one has any business except a housedweller... I'm so sorry for you both -- sign me a neighbour a few doors away from you --

Loz, you are a wicked person for whom, looking down, the angels shed a tear, and I quite like you.

I hope that you're right. Today I'm a bit eeyorish, I suppose. **gloom**

Those beautiful old plane trees will be coming down, then. I am sorry to find this out.

Try to use it; perhaps it will mitigate what the uncharitable might call "theft of services". It wasn't your card that you presented; you were travelling at a discounted rate to which, lacking such a card of your own to present, you had no right; you should have had your own card but... But you didn't, and instead of paying full fare and then attempting to reclaim the difference between that and the sum that you would have been charged had TFL done its job properly, you perpetrated a fraud. **takes black cap from beneath bench in readiness to pronounce sentence** I'm not sure that your appeal will be granted.

My recollection is that the space between Abbotswood and the railway line is not yet threatened -- and that the "infill" facility is to be shoehorned between Talbot and the railway line -- but that may be an error on my part, a bit of wishful thinking. With respect to the larger matter, indeed I agree with you: Local wishes have been trampled.

Thanks VERY much for the update. I'm pleased. The other week I learnt from a neighbour that the "infill" gymnasium to be inserted between housing on the St Francis estate and the railway line has been, on appeal, approved. If that has a silver lining perhaps it is that even less reason now exists to expand sports facilities cheek-by-jowl with the "infill" project.

That is more snail than even a Frenchman could desire.

Scrolling through this has been interesting. When renovating our house on the St Francis estate, where a parking pad seems to be part of the house-and-lot for most dwellings, we took care to install an OUTSIDE powerpoint on the front house-wall, near the parking pad, and to install an on-off switch INSIDE, to de-activate the powerpoint. We were looking forward to our next vehicle, an electric or hybrid car. Some posters have recommended that parking provision be a requisite when planning permission is granted for a new household. What about making access to a powerpoint a requisite as well?

"The person who died seems to be a good kid" -- from today's TELEGRAPH on-line, this update: "Seydou, 18, who was on bail for robbery and assault at the time, suffered a single stab wound to the heart during a clash in a branch of the Foot Locker, sportswear shop at lunchtime on Monday." Certain patterns of behaviour end with a run onto an opened knife. RIP.

Likely that the foundry has the maquette; surely the sculpture COULD be replaced. Less likely is that the sculpture was insured for the cost of a re-casting, and also less likely is that the council will elect to replace the sculpture as it was, where it was. As far as that petition: Closes on 8 August 2012. And then... how long till action is taken? Governments can move fast enough when their goal is to do mischief (e.g., intervene in Iraq). But for a no-brainer like this! One despairs.

Today is the last day on which comment submitted on the proposal definitely will be taken into account. I wrote to [email protected] the text below. If inertia has prevented any readers from commenting unfavourably on the request, please consider cut-and-pasting from this text. *** Re: GREENDALE SPORTS GROUND -- 11-AP-2250 To whom it may concern Please reject the application before you (11-AP-2250) which seeks to tear down the present sports facilities at Greendale and Burrow Road, replacing them with enlarged new facilities and consuming metropolitan open land in the process. The sports facilities in place at present are, I believe, not used to capacity. Before their extension is considered one should be sure that indeed capacity has been reached and regularly is exceeded. Application recently has been made, if I remember correctly, to sell the sports-facilities car park at the junction of Abbotswood Road and Edgar Kail Way, with housing to be built on the present car park site. Lacking a car park, the sports facilities will require a new parking area -- and the application requests one, for cars and coaches. Why not leave the present car park as it is? Why not renovate the present sports facilities, rather than tear them down and build new ones? Why not leave urban open land alone, rather than sacrificing it -- with this sidling manoeuvre -- for new housing? Please respect and adhere to the saved policy 3.25 (Metropolitan Open Land) of the Southwark Plan 2007 and to Strategic Policy 11 Open Spaces and Wildlife of the Core Strategy 2011, to which your letter of notification refers and from which approval of this planning application will require a departure.

Whatever one's stance on this matter, consultation closes on 18 December. Time's a-wastin'!

I've lived this, Alan. I've lived this.

@Rosie H -- Agreed.

@Sue: Kitty Genovese. This makes sorrowful reading. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Kitty_Genovese

A little excavation in the Forum's files shows that sparky74 is not new to the Forum. The excavated posts show her to be -- I think -- a young mother with a frantic life. My bet is that as her children have grown older -- taking part in more "activities", incurring more busyness -- she has found herself, involuntarily, ferrying them hither and thither, and even hither and yon. Then, on her return from the latest errand... all the parking spots are full. No wonder she feels aggrieved, even if there's no one or no thing against which a grievance can really be mounted. Without off-street parking, to keep a car in London is as much a load as it is a load-lightener. One more burden to shoulder, then, ma'am, and truly, you DO have my sympathies.

This reminds me of a VERY BAD TIME with a Zanussi washing machine. Same sort of problem. Ha!, I said to the machine after a day of travail and prayer that did nothing to open the door, you'll regret this! The men from Curry's with the new washing machine broke the door of the old one open for me once it was outside in the street. I rescued the laundry and told the old one as it was loaded into the Curry's van: Serve you right.

Petition e-signed, James, and thank you for the opportunity.