Alex K

You've got the riffraff from Abbotswood / Talbot / Shaw / Burrow Roads shambling past in drunken and incontinent states at all hours (I should know, I am among them), but nothing that watchful waiting behind your curtains and a loaded shotgun can't take care of. Welcome to the neighbourhood!

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=nom%20nom%20nom NOM NOM NOM revealed.

Oh, my. Ken, I've given offence when I had no intention of doing so. I'm sure that you are correct. I went only by what was signboarded, and I expect -- although I haven't asked them yet -- that what the Nunhead butchers last week-end signboarded as "capon" is nothing of the sort. Please accept my apology. It is sincerely offered, and I am very sorry to have displeased you. I did not mean to cast any doubt on what you have told us. **edited for syntax**

Compliments and particular thanks to the OP and to Applespider!

Sue, thanks for sharing this. Much appreciated.

What would I like in that parade? A branch of PHAM SUSHI from up on Whitecross Street. I find excuses to attend Barbican events just to be able to dip into that place for their tempura, dragon roll, kitsune-udon NOM NOM NOM.

Page 10 of the tree-preserving application http://planningonline.southwarksites.com/planningonline2/DocsOnline/Documents/192179_1.pdf shows the present Dulwich Hamlets car park occupied by housing.

Hmmm! Thanks, Ken -- the butchers on Evelina Road had "capon", large as life and twice as natural, on their little outside sign. Maybe they get them in from France, will have to enquire. **grin** I reckon they know their customers (like me) and have given up on re-educating them as a hopeless effort, wastes-the-butchers'-time-and-irritates-the-pig sort of endeavour. Therefore sagging back into "capon". Or perhaps simply not interested in buying a signboard that can accommodate all those words? If no true capon, then "large Christmas chicken". Good to know. Either way NOM NOM NOM NOM.

Southwark Council has obtruded itself upon me through my letterbox again, asking for comment on a policy-departure scheme to build over playing fields in the little enclave behind the Dog Kennel Hill Sainsbury's. I transcribe: "Development of new sports and recreation facilities to comprise full-length football pitch with associated floodlighting; six multi-use games areas with associated floodlighting; BMX track; new two-storey clubhouse with space for 200 spectator seats; parking area for 46 cars; coach park; and" -- huzzah! -- "an educational nature trail with new access points off Greendale". What "nature"? At the verges of the coach park? Anyhow. So far as I know this is something new, but if not, please point me to the thread where I can pick up from neighbours the best arguments to deploy in the letter that now I must write. Or if this is INDEED something new then please in your responses lay out those arguments for me, and thanks in advance for putting things better than I can hope to do.

Caponising was banned forty years ago? On a commercial basis only, perhaps? Guess we never got the memorandum. My dad had the kit in the shed: Find the proper spot on the body wall, in with it, turn and hook, pull out, cut, turn bird over, repeat. Bob's yer uncle. Maybe one out of ten of the cockerels we'd caponise died of this or that complication (it was before antibiotics in the water dish), but the capons 1) didn't fuss the neighbours with adolescent crowing competitions -- 2) were damned good eating. The corner butcher just a few shops along the parade in Nunhead from Soper's had a sign out offering to take orders for capons come Christmas. Maybe I'll head back there this week and put my name down for one.

Don't be too hard on the TELEGRAPH. Its compositors cheerfully ended that segment of text with an extraordinarily apposite headline for the next segment -- "CAMPING FOREVER". Huzzah for the happy couple! Long may they camp!

Is Meatwagon-style cookery still offered at The Rye?

They say that chow mein was invented abroad -- that it's not known in China. I'd taken for granted that sesame cold noodles (of the sort that I learned to love in Manhattan) were part of Chinese cooking world-wide. But today I've tried a Google for that term, x London, and NOTHING shows up. Has anyone encountered sesame cold noodles on a London restaurant menu? In SE-something, if at all possible?

Monday morning, no response, out into the pillarbox it goes. Safe travels, little mis-directed letter!

Through the letterbox this morning a hand-addressed piece of post to "Sharee and Tom George", within limits of legibility -- "Shmee ad Tan Geage", more like. And in fuchsia indelible marker. However. Not at the house number given, postal code of "SE22 8JD" non-existent but possibly a dyslectic "SE22 8DJ" (east side of Abbotswood Road). Neighbours, before I drop this back into the pillarbox, who are you and through which door should I push your mis-delivered post?

Agreed -- I've revised the thread heading to reflect that. Apologies offered!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2033882/Want-rail-ticket-Use-machine-customers-told-manned-offices-faces-axe.html Yes, nothing's ever eaten as hot as it's cooked; yes, the DAILY MAIL specialises in heatings-up. But the list of railway stations slated for closure -- Queens Road Peckham, East Dulwich, West Dulwich, Gipsy Hill, Brixton, Loughborough Junction, Nunhead, North Dulwich -- is kick after kick in the face of South London. Or so it seems to me.

James, a scratch of the head -- are Southwark Police still responsible for the upkeep of the building that they once occupied on Lordship Lane? The frontage is blocked off equally by traffic barriers and by weeds that have grown up around them. The weeds do tend to lower the tone. Can you put a word of remonstrance into Officer Friendly's pink and shell-like? Or if it's not his responsibility any more, into the p. & s.-l. of whomever owns the building?

Right hand up -- I used to be a yuppie. Now, however, I'm old.

Or the transcutaneous detector of illegal stimulants to be introduced at next year's Olympics. No more complicated gas chromatography to identify traces of designer testosterone! Just press it against to the skin of the body wall, flick the switch, and wait for the red diode to start flashing -- yes, it's the flank 'roid light.

@Maxxi / Loz: Oooh, you are dreadful! But I like you.

Oh, all right then... Yesterday on the way home from work I walked along St Francis Street and saw a tyke sitting on the wall around his front garden and crying as if his heart would break. After weighing the risks of being tagged as a paedo I stopped and said, What's wrong, mate? Can I help? The laddie sobbed, "The cat ate my new trainers!" And indeed when I looked down at his feet those trainers were in a sad and toothmarked state. Mate, I'm sorry... I said, not knowing how else to respond -- but then I thought -- A cat? Not a dog, a CAT eating trainers? Do you know, mate, I'd like to see the cat that did that!, I said to the lad. "He's under the car," the answer came. "He knows I hate him. He's hiding." I knelt, and craned a glance under the car -- yes -- no, there were TWO cats! Which one, then? A bit of here-kitty-kitty-kitty puss-puss=puss and one got up, stretched, and strolled over. Grab! I had it! And it nestled into my arms. Back to the lad I went. But he was too griefstricken to notice me. So I had to cough and to ask -- Pardon me, boy -- is this the cat who chewed your new shoes? *** Thank you -- you've been a wonderful audience -- I'm nothing without you -- tell your friends, I'm here all week!

Sorry to have a short attention span -- but although I wrote to the council to ask, PLEASE don't do this!, I entirely forget the array of impressive arguments that I marshalled to support my request. No wonder really, since they were all pinched from neighbours. Will someone do me a favour and list the reasons that this is not a Good Thing? I promise not to simply cut-and-paste. SERIOUS REQUEST. Thanks.

"Not by me but through me" -- praise the Lord!

Posts from richardbach make my eyes jump around too much. NOT SWIVEL, just "jump around"... Speaking of benefit recipients, WHERE HAS THE QUEEN BEEN DURING ALL THIS? It's her country, in Peckham it's even her road, for Heaven's sake. Shouldn't we be circulating a petition that asks her to emerge from whatever palace she's in and to console her subjects? "Your people need you, Ma'am!" What a wonderful impression it would give if she fired up the Roller and crossed the river to visit Poundland. "One loves Peckham". I can see the royal post-it now.