Burbage

I think there's a fair number of "participating" sub offices that do passports or, at least, play the "check and send" game (£16 for glancing at your form), so some degree of cherry-picking seems to be permitted. Though it does look as if Post Offices "Indentity Services" are where it things the future lies, and "Right to Rent" (though it's more an eligibility check) looks a bit of an earner, along with DBS checks and the Age Verification services that, if the government gets its way, we'll all need to subscribe to before we're allowed on mumsnet. Those services, incidentally, seem mostly outsourced to an outfit called "Yoti", a privately-owned, loss-making "identity platform" with debts of £150m, a tardy approach to filings, and a finger in a bunch of questionable pies ("Passive Facial Liveness Recognition" sounds gloriously sinister) so what the Post Office gets out of the arrangement isn't clear, but I'm sure they think it worthwhile. That said, they once thought the same of funeral plans which, for some peculiar reason, failed to set fire to the shuffling queues, even metaphorically. For most, it seems, Post Office work is mostly a dead loss, and even the parcel-juggling is more nuisance than blessing. As a nonchalant retailer of other people's services the organisation can only survive now on the back of subsidies, and we're not even sure what they are. The taxpayer-funded subsidies from government (a £136m hand-out to keep Horizon going, £1bn for its compensation scheme, around £50m for the network, and perhaps a loan or two) are clearish, but the cross-subsidies provided by other retail activities in branches are murkier. As are the "phantom shortfalls" created by the Horizon system, which secretly lined Post Office's coffers as postmasters balanced the books with contributions from their own pockets. Those never showed up in the accounts though - because Horizon *was* the accounting system - so we can't tell how much of a subsidy that was. We might get an idea of the scale, however, from Post Office's belated Horizon Shortfall Scheme, which is handing £75k to every branch that's complained, though it's anyone's guess if that's fair or not. Still, that's all supposed to be behind us now, and Post Office's CEO-of-the-week recently promised an "extra" £250m a year for the branches (roughly enough to cover a minimum wage worker in each), which might make it worth the candle for some. Though he didn't expect that would happen before 2030 (we can only wonder when his pension will mature) and then it'd be "subject to government funding", so it might have to be a very short candle as it doesn't look like a promise that he can make. Still, I wouldn't want to discourage anyone from applying for a franchise, and it's possible that, this time, Post Office will be telling the truth. And, you never know, we might all be back in the Post Office soon, and eagerly buying stamps, if only for existence permits, rather than for our letters.

It's Thames Water doing "water mains replacement and service relays", apparently. http://public.londonworks.gov.uk/roadworks/?x=5tHONdgMjIm9hSBEN-Cl1w

Not quite. They (i.e. the council, and Thames Water) are doing more or less what they did in Dulwich Park a few years ago, which is to build up some earthworks around the central portion to capture water running off from surrounding roads, effectively turning it into a lake. To stop it being entirely lake-like, they'll also be burying some "geocellular" storage tanks (a bunch of rocks in cages, but pricier) which is where excess water will allegedly be stored until Thames can be bothered to open a sluice. Unless there's more water than will easily fit, in which case it'll sit placidly on the surface. It isn't entirely clear how or whether this will make it dryer underfoot, but it's not one of the specified aims of the project, as it wasn't in Dulwich Park, so I don't suppose it will. Happily, though, there don't seem to have been any proper reviews of the Dulwich Park works, or their effects, which is surely as it should be. https://www.southwark.gov.uk/environment/flood-risk-management/flood-management-projects?chapter=3

What's going on is that Royal Mail's being prepared for a flog-and-scarper operation on behalf of an offshore billionaire. East Dulwich was a pilot attempt at that, with the local delivery office being offloaded onto the property market, and "operations" euphemistically relocated to Peckham. Which means that our post, if it doesn't hit landfill first, now gets sent to languish in a bunker off the Highshore Road until someone chooses to destroy, deliver or steal it. Delivery is probably the least likely outcome, probably because not hiring people to deliver post has landed the manager with some toppy KPIs and they've rightly calculated that the pitch-fork wielders of Dulwich won't be bothered to walk that far, while the peeved of Peckham are only a half-brick's throw away. That has had two effects. One is that we tend not to get post any more. The other is that the tireless Helen Hayes has spent a tireless six or seven years tirelessly telling us how tireless she's been. Which is great if that's your jam, but it's neither buttered any parsnips nor delivered any post. Though it has got her picture in the local papers, and sometimes the BBC, so it's not been as entirely wasted an effort as a cynic might suggest. The official view, as is usual for corporate and political communications, is a steaming pack of thieving lies, so there's nothing to be had from that. Moreover, although a great deal of post has gone reportedly missing, that's never been properly followed up, mostly because it's very hard to prove an absence, only senders can do the complaining and the most you'll get for your effort is a passive-aggressive non-apology and, in exceptional cases, a stamp. Which, given that Royal Mail's own stamps have been bouncing, is a self-servingly poisoned chalice. To sum up, if you're in a position to invest in cleft sticks or urchins, I wouldn't wait much longer. The rest of us, however, remain stuffed, and will be further stuffed in five year's time when we have to bail the buffers out. But never mind. If five years seems too long to wait, we''ll have Thames Water to bail out before that.

That's a very good, if very depressing, point. If I'm consoled at all it's that, if only for a moment, I managed to forget that our legislation is usually drafted by lobbyists.

I can only think of the Mobile Recycling Centre, a van that once appeared like magic in a random car-park at 10am on the fourth Wednesday of every month. But, now I do think of it, that doesn't seem to exist any more, presumably having died of the pandemic, shame, or the economic climate. However, the Law has now changed so that everywhere that sells electricals is required to take them back for recycling. In theory, that should apply to all electrical retailers (which includes the supermarkets any supermarket that sells kettles) regardless of whether they sold the things or not, so cheapskates shouldn't have to worry about being turfed out of Sainsbo's for carrying Morrison's lamps. Retailers being what they are, however, it's not quite as simple as that, as Sainbury's passive-aggressive green-washing page sets out. In some ways, that's an accurate reflection of the legislation, but in other ways it's not, and those of a curious turn of mind and/or aren't very easily bored, can compare and contrast at their leisure: https://help.sainsburys.co.uk/help/terms-and-conditions/phc-recycling https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2013/3113/part/5/made The key term in 42(1) of The Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Regulations 2013 is "very small WEEE". That, though Sainsbo's has chosen not to tell us, means "items of waste electrical and electronic equipment that are less than 25cm on their longest side". * Which for those still using Imperial, includes most lightbulbs. So, as far as I can tell (and I am neither a lawyer, retailer or government scribe), that means any large Sainsbury's (or Tesco, Asda, Lidl, Morrisons, Aldi or anywhere else that's got more than 400 square meters and sells lightbulbs) is obliged to take them in for recycling. And that seems to hold whether or not you buy replacements there, or can provide proof of purchase of same. That doesn't mean you won't have to argue the toss at the Customer Service Desk, but if you believe the planet's worth more than the temporary dismay of a sub-assistant under-manager, then you won't be wasting your time. * See under "distributor obligations" at https://www.gov.uk/guidance/regulations-waste-electrical-and-electronic-equipment

This is right. Though, of course, Royal Mail isn't Royal Mail any more. It's now International Distributions Systems (IDS), which is a holding company. One part of which just happens to be Royal Mail. And it's Royal Mail that's subject (unlike the more profitable parcels business) to the Universal Service Obligation. This "restructuring" follows a time-honoured tradition that's been in place since ever limited liability was a thing. The key is that a parent company is not liable for the liabilities of its subsidiaries. So the trick in any "restructuring" is to take the toxic stuff (all the bits that are unprofitable, or are heavily regulated), and put them in one subsidiary, and put all the nice profitable bits in another. In the case of the bank crisis, that was done to separate toxic loans from lovely long-term mortgages. In the case of IDS, it might be to separate the business of taking postcards to Auchtermuchty from the business of hauling fancy dogfood round Canary Wharf. Once that's done, then the toxic side can simply be shuttered, and all its debts and obligations disappear. The parent company might have to hand it to administrators who can (very rarely, and only if there's recent evidence of egregious behaviour) claw back a little money from parent-company shareholders, but if it can be argued it collapsed because the profits weren't there to be made (the Universal Service Obligation is a great help there), then they can't. So IDS's job may have been a tricky one - it would take a lot of tedious juggling to invisibly separate the two sides of Royal Mail. Splitting accounts, assets, payrolls etc., and stripping the property assets, without affecting the appearance of business-as-usual, can't be easy. So it would be hardly surprising if side-issues, such as industrial relations or delivering post, were forced to take a back seat. But if that's what they've done, then can then trickle along to Parliament and ask for the Universal Service Obligation to effectively disappear, on threat of shuttering Royal Mail. Parliament will then have to decide what to do. It might, indeed, do away with the whole idea of post, as we know it and, as in some parts of the world, decide it's sufficient to have a community mailbox within a few miles of any address and deliver whenever it's "practicable" (which might be an improvement on the nothing we've got now). Or it mightn't wait for Royal Mail to shutter itself, and renationalise it, instead. Or as is more customary these days, hand it to an offshore concern along with a juicy sweetener (see much of the "British" steel/car/battery industries and, in all likelihood, Thames Water again), and let some other government sort it all out. But, either way, the institutional shareholders (less than 20% are private investors), will get to keep a nice money-making business, and all the dividends they've pocketed along the way, as well as at least two parcels of mine.

I think they're still taking "soft plastics" - e.g. the bags apples and porridge come in. They tend to hide the bins a bit, but they're usually near one of the exits, somewhere behind the checkouts (it's the same at the Catford Tesco's, though I'd rather not say how I know that). However, it's true that they don't do the general recycling now (paper, tins, bottles etc.) and the bunkers that once lurked at the end of the car park have vanished without trace, stains aside. There are doubtless commercial reasons for that, possibly including the drop in volume (and thus value) of the stuff collected, as most households now have general recycling collected from home, which wasn't the case when they started. And so it's probably just easier to tick their responsibility box by writing a cheque to some rubbish-offsetting scheme (as they do with electricals) than to clutter the car-park and manage a large, multi-site contract with a rubbish contractor whose margins are being squeezed. I can think of a few other reasons, too, but the laws of libel favour only those who can afford to have them written. This isn't just a Sainsbury's thing - most non-council sites that used to take recycling seem to have stopped and even the shade of the mobile recycling van, a multi-borough investment that was once rumoured to haunt bits of Southwark on damp Wednesdays in Martober, has trundled even out of folklore. Still, some traditions manage to persist, and I gather many in this pointy end of the borough continue to smuggle their garbage to Lambeth or Lewisham, where the facilities are sometimes more welcoming, and I couldn't think of better places for it. But, for the moment, the less adventurous of us will just have to bear the ignominy of having to waddle to the streetside once a week rather than presuming on a drive-by dump at the grocer's.

That only works if sqw103 has proof of the posting which, as they're the recipient, seems unlikely. And also proof that it arrived "three or more working days after the due date" (unless they happen to be busy, when it's four working days). Which is not particularly easy. The easiest way to get proof of any of this is if the sender gets a "proof of posting" slip from a Post Office when they post it. That will give a date and a time, to which you have to add a day. That's because Royal Mail cunningly deems the "last collection" time on any day to be 7am, safely before Post Offices are open. So the first day becomes the next day and, for first class post, the third day becomes the "due date" as that counts as the next day. Unless, as I said, it's a busy time of year. Then we need to add to the third day the three working days after the due date. Perhaps an example would help: Say someone posts something to you first thing on a Monday. That means it's posted on a Tuesday, and the due date is a Wednesday. Three working days after that is Sunday, which doesn't count, meaning that if it hasn't arrived by the following Monday, you can see if you feel lucky and make a complaint. So now we've got a "next day" service, for which compensation can be had if it arrives a week later, unless they can find an excuse (bank holidays, weather, busy times of year). But only if you can persuade the sender to retrospectively get a proof of posting, send that proof to you and indisputably prove that the postie didn't shovel it through your flap beforehand. If you can get all that together, and navigate their online claims procedure (a breed of "go away machine" that customers of utility firms and GP surgeries will be familiar with) within three months then you might, after a suitable length of time, receive a "book of first class stamps" for your trouble, safe in the knowledge that it'll have cost them a lot less than the fiver it might have cost you. The only consolation is that, useless and futile than it might all seem, it's been smiled on by the Regulator, an actual Government Agency that is, at the very least, the best we can possibly hope for.

I've just had another email telling me that services are being disrupted, which means I've had more emails in the last three weeks than I've had deliveries. They don't say why, of course, but that presumably means it's mismanagement. I've been wondering what to do about all this, given that our councillors and MPs haven't made a dent in Royal Mail's nonchalance, and nor has Ofcom or the government, even though the Royal Mail's CEO seems to have lied to them all and, by extension, to me. I take that very personally, and so cheerfully agreed with the Commons' BEIS committee's inquiry report, which came out in March, when it stated what all of us will already know: "We believe that Royal Mail has systemically failed to deliver against parts of its Universal Service Obligation. We recognise the challenges of both the pandemic and ongoing industrial action, but the evidence we have suggests this systemic failing has been taking place before, between and during these events". They also noted that Royal Mail's board had excluded regulatory requirements from consideration when it came to remunerating managers. Which makes sense from their point of view, as that would reward the wrong sort of activity. There's plenty of money to be had from selling postage, but delivering post is purely a cost and if it's possible to do the one without the other (which it very clearly is), there are bonuses to be made. Still, Parliament isn't in the business of doing things, so it handed its warm words to Ofcom, with a recommendation that they think seriously about considering setting up some sort of inquiry, to see if there was any good reason why an obligation shouldn't be an obligation, and whether Ofcom should be the people not to do anything about it. Their published report also found its way to Government, which responded with a couple of letters along the lines of "if this happened, we might be shocked". Ofcom, which is sort-of part of government and likes to keep cosy, added its ha'pennyworth to the response, announcing two months later that Royal Mail had confessed to failing to meet its obligations and that, as a result, Ofcom had started an immediate investigation into "whether there are reasonable grounds for believing that Royal Mail has failed to comply with its obligations". They think that might take them till Christmas. So that's where we are. The regulator's doing nothing and there's no prospect of Parliament doing anything either. While the Royal Mail board, though it's allowed its chief exec to step down at a time that's yet to be specified, hasn't done anything, too. So my advice would be this: Nail shut your letterbox, let out the dogs, learn to use e-mail, walk to the shops, don't buy stamps, give up your birthday, go buddhist for Christmas and never take in anything for the neighbours. Don't fall for the "Postman Pat" propaganda, but give the scuttling minions of a rapacious bunch of asset-stripping chisellers all the respect they deserve, and never forget that even if they haven't personally taken our money, vanished our property, cost us fines and risked our health, they happily take their orders from those who have.

They've done this for a lot of postboxes, if not most of them, already. And, as you suggest, it's a smallprint way of delivering a second-class service at first-class prices, while saving Ofcom the trouble of having to hand Royal Mail its customary annual fine and, entirely coincidentally, boosting sales of the highly profitable premium services that keep its griftily indolent managers in yachts and bacon. However, it might have broader implications. For example, the Ministry of Justice, the Court of Appeal and, by extension other courts, currently harbour the quaint 20th-Century belief that: "The court will assume a document was served.. where it was posted by first class post or equivalent, the second working day after it was posted." Or, to cite one of the examples from Practice Direction 6A of the Civil Procedure Rules: "Where the document is posted (by first class post) on a bank holiday Monday, the day of deemed service is the following Wednesday (a business day)." Which means that, should anyone post anything that matters by first-class post, the courts will presume that it arrived on the second working day after it was posted, regardless of whether it did or not, and it may be up to you to prove that it didn't, with all the no evidence you've got.

The drawings that were consulted on are at: https://consultations.southwark.gov.uk/environment-leisure/wood-vale/ The consultation summary report, and a sort-of timetable, are at: https://www.southwark.gov.uk/transport-and-roads/improving-our-streets/live-projects/street-improvements/wood-vale-improvements

Jersey Tiger Moth. As the name implies, they live in Jersey but have been around in SE London for the last 30 years or so, seemingly growing in numbers each year.

Rockets Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > But 22,500 drivers have not missed a two 20mph > signs in a 6 week period. You have to admit that > those numbers suggest that something isn't > working. The RAC's Report on Motoring 2020, contains this: "On roads with a 20mph limit, compliance is also improving with nearly four in 10 (39%) admitting to speeding, down from 44% last year" and "Meanwhile, 11% of limit-breakers have driven above 40mph in a 30mph zone while 10% have exceeded 30mph in a 20mph zone. In the case of the latter, 45% of those who speed at least occasionally say this is because they believe the limit is ?inappropriate? for the area or stretch of road in question." I think that tells us exactly what's not working.

TfL 'tentatively' aspires to commence work on the Lordship Lane/Dulwich Common junction (aka The Grove Tavern junction) in 2020. Though, given the government's just getting started on another round of austerity and spectacularly raised the bar in terms of dismissable deaths, I strongly doubt they're doing much more than waiting for the money to run out. It is, after all, a fairly expensive project as it doesn't just involve nailing a button to a lamp-post but building four separate staggered walkways which are necessary, I gather, if pedestrians aren't to get the impression that their time is as valuable as anyone else's. We have, after all, been here before, with an approved, and fully-funded, improvement project all signed and sealed and teetering on the brink of actuality until it all magically evaporated when our dear friends and neighbours chose to elect Johnson as our mayor. A surprising number of people, it seems, would prefer children not to access nature until they've had a good chance of being killed or injured first and, perhaps unsurprisingly, their arguments seem to hold weight in all the best corridors of power.