Burbage

Roundabout Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > What is the ?Patch?? Thanks. It's an allegedly imminent manifestation of a concept, tickled up with a vision of the Madonna, that's predicted to materialise before the Rapture and opposite the Wash'n'Dry. Or, paraphrasing their website, a self-sustainable, self-sufficient, re-invented, community-owned, -managed and -supplied independent urban bar, restaurant, kitchen garden and/or gastro-pub.

It won't have been the air ambulance as that's not allowed to fly at night. Plod's helicopters, on the other hand, can. Another difference is that the air ambulance consists of one helicopter, as opposed to Plod's three, and has a budget (only half of which is taxpayer funded) to match. So, should you be run over during antisocial hours, you can at least be reassured that the traffic flows will be managed properly.

bodsier Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > It's no longer available! I only heard them > mention it yesterday, I am sure they said its > still available! Must have been a repeat...gutted > :( It's the drama podcast of the week, so you can download it from here.

They're gathering for hibernation, apparently. For at least the second time this year, which suggests the weather isn't helping. If they decide to hibernate indoors then, assuming you can afford heating, they're likely to wake up too early and die for lack of food. If you're in that lucky position but still have concerns, you can make a home for them with something waterproof (a plastic box or bottle will do) filled with corrugated cardboard. Put the ladybirds in the box (gently), and then stick it in the garden. If you're not, then it won't matter much. They don't do much when they're hibernating, so you needn't worry about the noise or the furniture.

uncleglen Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Maybe they had their Iron Maiden CD playing full > blast at the same time! Not quite, but close. I think they're designed to solve two problems. The first problem is that those obliviously sitting in their nasty boxes with Iron Maiden, or Woman's Hour, turned up to 11 can't, or prefer not to, hear the sirens. The second is that just blatting out a traditional siren noise is that, from some angles, it's difficult to tell where it's coming from and, in some circumstances, it'll become inaudible. (If you ever studied 'waves' in Science, you'll know that this happens, and that there's no interesting way of explaining it). Even if the Met wasn't yet bored of running people over, the mayor was getting tired of the headlines. To get round these problems, they have two main tricks. The first is changing the frequency of the siren, swooping it up and down, which makes it, theoretically, more audible from different directions. The second is to use s smear of frequencies (that's the grinding noise) that can cut through at least through the mellifluous clamour of Iron Maiden. Because they can't really have everything going on at once without deafening pedestrians and cyclists (not, I suspect, that Plod cares very much, but the manufacturers have lawyers), the sirens are now designed to do the different things in sequence, so they'll switch, sometimes fairly quickly, between a bit of siren, a bit of swoopy noise and the grindery stuff. Unfortunately, this isn't just funky but very effective, so we'll just have to get used to it.

PeckhamRose Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Life is about living and doing one's best, despite > the rules telling us what to do, how to do it, > where to do it, telling us how to carry on a > profession we've already spent years training and > are now qualified to do, and despite the rules > designed to raise funds by forcing us in to little > spaces and little mind spaces. Meh! I can't find the quote on Google, but I think it must have been either Bernie Madoff or Harold Shipman. Can we have another clue, please?

Good grief. maxxi got nearest with: ------------------------------------------------------- > why would new legislation be necessary when > existing laws were more than adequate to prosecute > those who broke EXISTING laws with regard to > hacking etc? The answer is because enforcing existing laws would have required stern action from the Majestic Brotherhood of Plod who quite like things as they are and, lest we forget, were up to their bung-hungry necks in it from the start, guzzling at the metaphorical dugs of the press barons with one face while ignoring the bereaved and the bullied with the other - not just ignoring them, but at least in some cases denying access to justice and even assisting in the persecution. But we've forgotten that. We've forgotten that because the Press Regulation circus is an illusionists' trick, engineered on the same lines as Plebgate which, after a shaky start, has managed to direct all the fallout at the regulator rather than the culprits. The current debate about Press Regulation is exactly the same thing. The Leveson Inquiry was a magnificent distraction. It looked good and went on long enough to appear rigorous, but was happily 'inevitably hampered' from looking into police corruption 'in any depth' by ongoing police operations that are likely to continue for as many happy, pensionable years as is convenient. Which means, for all the expense, it only did half a job. And so, luckily for the villains, all the fuss and fury is about regulation rather than the police or the press. It's about whether the press barons should transparently appoint themselves as their own regulators or have political appointees appoint them instead. It will make no difference either way, and given that the government can already, up to a point, decide who owns the media in the first place, the political interference accusations seem a bit feeble. What should matter isn't what regulation should appear to be, but why it's needed at all. But as things stand, we're headed for a situation where the media barons, with the helpful connivance of a biddable and lazy Plod, will get to decide what laws apply to them. That's why this debate is such a harmful irrelevance. It's not because fundamental principles aren't at stake, it's that both sides undermine those very principles. Instead of looking at removing barriers to justice and steamrollering the corruption out of Plod, we're arguing about who should wield a rubber stamp. This is exactly as they hoped. And, given the influence of the press in framing the debate, inevitably so.

Jah Lush Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Even if your calculation is correct I reckon I'm > still paying too much. Yes. For a one-bed, Thames' assessed rate is ?270 for 2013/4 - less if you're declare yourself a single occupant. As Applespider suggests, you're best off asking for a water meter. If they won't/can't fit one, they have to charge you at the assessed rate. The plan might come unstuck if they do fit a meter, but that's unlikely to cost you more unless you've got an acre of garden or the hydroponic equivalent.

This is what you want.

The police station is shut. Whether that counts as corroboration of the aged anecdote, given that it struggled with openness even in its horsey heyday, is a moot point. Contrary to more ancient rumour, however, no purveyor of fuller-figured groceries has shown the slightest interest in the crumbling remains of the Ploddish outpost, and the transformation of the sorry old bunker into an empire of frumpy fashions or hermetic fruit remains as dubious a subject for gossip as woodrot herself.

olly Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Is this a parking offence and if so, could we > see it enforced? It's not an offence. Although the Highway Code advises that vehicles shouldn't be parked within 30 feet of a junction or, indeed, opposite one, it only becomes an offence if the road is marked appropriately, and they hardly ever are. You might think, with car use declining locally, that the elected ornaments of the borough might be minded to empolicy the Highway Code's advice. But when even our more enlightened representatives have difficulty understanding that pedestrians need sight-lines too, it's unlikely to happen. That's not to say there aren't guidelines. There is, for example, DS114 (pdf). But that's not much good being, as well as opaque, liberally spattered with weaselish. Thus the existence of "features that give confidence that street users would proceed with sufficient caution...", is enough to make almost any brushwork optional, given that one feature that causes street users to proceed with caution is not being able to see. The only thing that's clear is that Tufty died in vain. * Readers who bother will notice that another permitted excuse for reducing visibility is where lower stopping distances can be assumed. Like they are in 20mph zones, for example. As ever, be careful what you wish for.

womanofdulwich Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > but each individual flat must have building > insurance, which should cover this. it will be a > condition of your mortgage, however if you dont > have a mortgage then you may not have building > insurance- but thats pretty unusual. That's not right. It's the freeholder, who is deemed to own the building, to sort out the buildings insurance. The leaseholders just get to pay for it through their service charge. But the buildings insurers probably won't cover cases like this. After all, they're selling to freeholders, who aren't be in the slightest way troubled by such matters, so there's no reason to take on a liability that they don't need to. The leaseholders, because they don't own the buildings, will not be able to get buildings insurance on an individual bases (even if they did want to pay twice for it). They can get contents insurance but, naturally, that won't cover stuff like this. I suspect that the quickest way to deal with this sort of problem is to trot along to the small claims court and put in a case against the flat above's leaseholder. That probably won't get anything done in a meaningful timescale, but it'll be more likely to get things started than arguing the toss with insurers and freeholders, and a modestly-priced demonstration that you mean business. Otherwise these things can creep on for years, which may affect your ability to sell the place should you ever feel the need to cash in your sense of community for a bunch of filthy lucre.

edhistory Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > The building needs to be considered in the round, > including its rear. As, sadly, do we all. But, as your picture makes clear, the west face is something of a revelation. At first glance, there's an almost Escherian playfulness in its gutterless geometry, and an apparent acknowledgement of human liberty in the graceful levity of the aerial walkways. On closer consideration, however, the sinisterly labyrinthine qualities become clear. This is surely a Castle rather than a Castalia, a sarcastic Berghof of the flatlands. It's no coincidence that the stairway leads not to heaven but to a parody of a Clarkeian monolith, a decidedly earthly destination that demonstrates both the limits of human ambition and the fearful mundanity of life's purpose. I disagree that a building's occupants are irrelevant. We might think of the building chiefly as a garish bunker of frozen comestibles, but it also houses suburban exiles of the rat-race, a plight that's been reflected both presciently and appropriately by the architect. One of the key deliverables of any civilisation is the accommodation of the unfortunate and this has surely earned its place in the townscape on that ground alone.

James Barber Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Do you think we sohuld make this 20mph? A lot depends on what that means. If the road is already equipped with the sort of traffic calming measures that the DfT and councils are pleased to think of as 'self-enforcing', then you're just talking signage, in which case you'd get exactly the same effect by making it a Nuclear Free Zone or an Empire of Happiness, either of which would be cheaper (there's less paperwork, and you'd not have to advertise the change in the newspapers). The magical effects of 20mph zones only work where they're in conjunction with measures that make rat-running more difficult than it was to start with. Drivers, certainly in London, know full well that a 20mph sign means the same as 'no speed cameras' and having won several victories over speed hump heights (and, it seems, universally jacked up their suspensions), won't necessarily slow down on account of them. So now, short of a blanket 20mph zone enforceable (and enforced) by average speed cameras, I can't see incremental additions to an already dubious network being cost-effective. Unless, of course, some serious studies into the effects of them have been carried out since 2006, but I can't find any. I'll admit that data is not everything. But it is the only difference between a sensible proposal and a futile gamble. Assuming it's presented and interpreted correctly. Cllr Barber has, let's say inadvertently, illustrated this rather neatly by relying on an excerpt that's certainly not the most recent available and making something of an assumption about what's happening in the top 15%. Looking at all the data that the council has been pleased to let us see at our own expense, the picture is subtly different. It is, by and large, this: LOCATIONDIRECTIONSTART_DAYMONTHYEARDaily FlowAVE_SPEED_85TH_SPEED Melbourne Grove northNorth25SEPT2010241616.519.5 Melbourne Grove northSouth25SEPT2010219713.916.8 Melbourne Grove north sectionNorth2JUL2009248618.922.4 Melbourne Grove north sectionSouth2JUL2009221819.023.5 Melbourne Grove south sectionNorth1JUL200990818.222.4 Melbourne Grove south sectionSouth1JUL2009112717.921.7 I am no statistician, but that seems to show a reduction in average speeds between 2009 (the counts Cllr Barber chose) and 2010 (the most recent data they've bothered to collect) and that's at least comparable with the effect you'd expect from declaring a 20mph zone. All achieved, apparently, without having to bother declaring one at all. I can see that there may be problems with this. The data is a bunch of snapshots taken with equipment we may or may not be able to trust and processed by lurky folk we pay but cannot see, taken at specific times of the year on particular bits of road which may, or may not, have been dug up, used for street parties or full of potholes at the time. In other words, we have no real idea which bits of it might reflect reality and thus, for all my presumptuous sniping, what I think I see might be just as wrong as what Cllr Barber thinks he sees. So the question is, do we believe the data, which clearly shows no need for a 20mph zone, or disbelieve it, leaving ourselves with not data to support one? It's tricky. Though it's also a fine demonstration of how, provided they're careful to publish sufficiently fragmented and questionable data, councils get to do whatever they like. Morally, the right thing to do is whatever TfL doesn't. That, in this case, would mean either collecting recent, reliable speed data (rather than just counting vehicles). Or, if you can't be bothered to do that, asking the people who live along the road. After all, although it's the public highway, the residents are members of the public, and a lot more likely to use the road than anybody else. Admittedly, they do so disproportionately for pedestrian purposes, but there really is no moral reason why the council should treat pedestrians with the utter and brutal contempt that it usually affords them, and a change is always pleasant.

According to Thames' website, the problem has now disappeared. There's a report of a leak on Overhill, and they're sending a technician. According to public.londonworks.gov.uk, there's a "Main Clamp 6 to 12" Cway in Carriageway" which'll be going on till Friday. Presumably that's what the current round of single-lane action is about. Potentially more interesting is the expedition to "Investigate and repair leak on 42" main" up Fireman's Alley, which is scheduled to go on till the Friday after, thrillingly close to the telephone exchange. Given all these pipes were tediously upgraded well within living memory, expressly to reduce leaks and at our considerable expense, I have asked Thames the relevant question. I'm sure a helpfully constructive reply is on its way.

Sue Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > An excellent candidate. > > I'm with John here :) I agree entirely. I think the tiles are distinctive and unusual, and the whole seems to embody a spirit of futile optimism which, because it's been cruelly dashed by the inevitable bludgeon of time, exemplifies, in a very concrete sense, the essence of the human condition. We all start out embodying other people's hopes and, for a while, may even be cherished, but we all go to our graves ugly and alone. The building's brutal celebration of that simple truth, albeit metaphorically, is surely worth preserving. I am, however, glad that such senior members of the forum have chosen to champion it first, as otherwise it might have seemed tactless.

Looks like there's a leak at the Overhill/Lordship junction. Astonishingly, it seems to be in more or less exactly the same place as last time. Thames seems to be aware so, given what happened last time, it might be worth taking precautions.

???? Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Pretty dull nowadays, the old it was better 2 > years ago clich? can be changed to 4 Which begs the question of why more seem addicted to it now it's turned, to use a culinary analogy, from crack to porridge. The absence of unmitigated strife is, at least arguably, a good thing, and I can see the benefit of single-issue, single-author threads where monomaniacs can gibber to themselves without upsetting others. It follows in the recent tradition of public bodies which, however short of cash, find time and money to set up forums and meetings and consultations and communications units to focus on ever more detailed aspects of their work in the strategic hope of being able to place any future fall-out at the doors of a handful of bewildered public. But what's a sound component of a panjandric arse-concealing strategy isn't necessarily so useful in the context of a discursive forum. And that makes it particularly baffling that so of us are now incapable of reading a thread without appending an entirely inoffensive version of what we'd like people to think our opinion might be. I'm of the mind that, as the economy plummets, inflation rises, wages falls, unemployment hovers, gas prices loom and the overweening futility of what passes for a human life looks more like a bleakly cosmic giggle, people turn to the forum in the same way as, in decades past, they would turn to suet pudding or (in more elevated households) banana custard. By dripping our polite and neutral contributions into the communal mix, like spoonfuls of Horlicks into Grandma's toothless maw, we're adding a dose of fluffiness to what we hope will become a respectful utopia, spontaneously arising from a pleasantly public denial that there's anything out of place in this best of all possible worlds. It's pure escapism, of course. But there's little enough of that available elsewhere, outside of the Daily Mail, since the soaps went all gritty. But however attractive escapism might be, it's never buttered any parsnips or shifted much in the way of canine excrement. It is therefore our certain duty to clamp down on it. We must quash unwarranted optimism with the same vigour as we sit on the deluded, scurry at the legal threats of cake-shops or, with all due respect, drive out irrelevant nostalgia.

numbers Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Sorry to be dim but how could the first ever web > page have a 'Frequently Asked Questions' section? Well. Hypertext (the language which webpages are written in) existed years before the web. And it itself sprang from an ancestor (SGML, or standardised general markup language) that dated back even earlier, and was used to build electronic documents. The difference was that, before the web, computers exchanged information by other protocols (e.g. disk, FTP, gopher) though that didn't mean there weren't search engines (e.g. veronica). It just meant there weren't any browser wars. In other words, FAQs, disclaimers, error pages and naughty pictures all existed long before the web. Berners-Lee's invention was to combine the two things - tweaking the connections between networked computers so they could transmit hypertext directly. It seems a simple and obvious idea and, so Berners-Lee wasn't the only only contender. A whole host of academic, military and legal organisations were trying to do much the same, though with different agendas. Happily, Berners-Lee happened to work at CERN and know the right people, and that, thankfully, is why it didn't go all VHS on us. If it had, we'd still be floundering in walled gardens and having to pay hefty fees just to look at stuff. Although, thanks to Apple, those options are still available, at least we have the choice.

El Pibe Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I don't think religion appropriated morality for > its own ends, I think religion was something that > built up over time and was both a way of > explaining a tough and mysterious world as well as > a manifest expression of those societal norms and > exigencies required in order to survive. At least some Egyptologists will differ. The thing about Egypt is that they had a different god at every town and village, same way as we have postcodes, which fostered a useful tribalism. Far better for those in charge to have the occasional minor scuffle to deal with than to find themselves up against a multi-borough conspiracy or whatever sort of Spring they might have had before the Arab invasion. The explicatory value was obvious and, even now, religions the world over go to great lengths to explain why rulers are rulers, why plebs are plebs and why shit tends to happen only to the latter. The admission of the existence of a spirit (or soul or footishistic vibrancy) is a classic get-out for those seeking more power than they deserve. See, for example, point 5 of the Gutsell manifesto (the remaining points, being variously inapplicable to sociopaths, hermits, the comatose and/or Breatharians, are by no means universal and point 1 is merely an unprovable assertion). Morality, or ethics, is something a little different. It's very much a subset of philosophy and before it can really be considered, you've got to at least address what society might be, the individual's place in it and whether whether there's any point to the whole business at all. Most philosophers reckon there is, but, three millennia later, there's still nothing to say that most philosophers aren't wrong. The Greeks may be widely credited with developing ethical frameworks (as is Hobbes, whose work RGutsell appears to be trying to replicate), but they didn't come to many conclusions. Their chief contribution was the alleged development of logic - a method of debating things that excluded the invocation of gods or spirits which then, as now, was the equivalent of booting the ball into Mr Grumpy's garden. It was the Romans, more or less, who developed out of this a sort of Natural Law, which was later nicked by Hobbes, whose act of larceny bore fruit amidst the dismal thickets of English law. And, in the fullness of time, the tedious detail of the UN's supposedly universal (but not, in any sense, actually universal) declaration of human rights. Which all begs the question of why, given this stuff already exists, we're bothering to watch RGutsell trying to reinvent the wheel without the benefit of homework. I think, in a very real sense, the answer lies in a couple of lines from They Might Be Giants: "(Either) I'm dead and I haven't done anything that I want / Or I' m still alive and there's nothing I want to do". Words that, I'd argue, sum up the most important, and universal, of human qualities.

This is an 'improvement' aimed at paving the way for the Cycle Superhighway. In other words, if you think it's bad now, wait till you find it painted blue and routed via Deptford. The rest of the staggeringly inept proposal is currently held up because even TfL couldn't defend some of the gibbering insanities they dreamt up for Vauxhall Cross and, being unaccountably short of anyone able to think anything through, are having to farm it out to a damp-eared planmonger, presumably in the hope that it'll take so long and cost so much that it'll be beyond the scope of criticism. As a result, we're getting piecemeal changes in the meantime that don't make much sense at present, but are at least more comprehensible and marginally less lethal now than they're slated to become. The plan, or at least a description of the changes that TfL plan to make and a diagram that doesn't show them is here . As usual, TfL have blithely assumed that no cyclist ever has to turn right, and still plans to encourage cyclists to 'undertake' on the left at junctions, just as if literacy never happened.

rgutsell Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Here they are. What do you think? > > 1. Community should take a positive and constructive > attitude to the incipient potential... Perhaps I'm insufficiently cynical, but please explain how and why you think the "incipient potential" for violence arises from "faithfulness in all relationships" > 2. We are the sole authors of our own commandments > and ethics. Yes. But 'we' is seven billion people, all with different sets of 'commandments and ethics'. > 3. Secular ethics are the pragmatic solution to > dealing with the stresses of living together, As is 'natural law' and the rules of any religion, government or two-bit flatshare that's arisen since the dawn of time. > 4. All humans regardless of race, culture, belief > etc, are beset by the same frailties, anxieties, > vulnerability, and needs. Not unless you've stolen my bunions. What we're beset by is different for everyone. For example, you suffer delusions whereas I suffer fools. > 5. Attention to the everyday quality or our > actions and relationships, directly affects the > overall quality and culture of society. The small > leads to the large. The same applies to cake. > 6. A holistic conception of healthy social living > should be developed, and communicated throughout > society, rather than the purely commercially > inspired messages that dominate today. Perhaps you're staying in too much, but such things have been developed. Not least by nations, religions, cults and sects. My advice would be to stop watching telly and get some counselling (there are plenty on this forum, though possibly not enough, who can provide suitable recommendations). Or you could do what everyone else seems to do at a certain time of life - build yourself a yurt and sell 'awareness' courses to the vulnerable. > 7. We can see ourselves as spiritual, > psychological and corporeal beings in a holistic > way, (without recourse to belief in the > supernatural) and develop institutions, > architecture, places and buildings, in which > education and personal development in this way, > are encouraged. Please explain what is meant by spiritual without recourse to the supernatural. Include at least one architectural drawing to illustrate your answer. > 8. The life we have now, is the only one we will have. You have no proof for that, and though it's a comforting thought, it's nothing more than that. > 9. We are not alone in our insecurities, and human > vulnerability, and the temporary nature of our > lives. A healthy secular society will advance ways > to share these, and publicly acknowledge them. The existence of Facebook, hospitals and Trident suggest we're not short of ways of sharing our vulnerabilities. > 10. The Humanities should be developed as a source > of inspiration, learning, moral support and > ethical guidance. This is futile and dangerous. For unless you're going to reduce the Humanities to a branch of Gutsell-approved philosophy, you're going to be looking for ethical guidance in Wagner and moral support from Albanian. If you mean censorship, then say so and then at least we'll know what to think. I appreciate the timing. With only the UKIP conference to trouble the papers, it seems a great time to launch a something, whatever this something is. But, with respect, it looks more like the founding document for a particularly oppressive naturist colony than the manifesto for a new republic. Either way it raises questions as to motive.

DulwichFox Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > The Council provide FREE Green Food Bags that go > in your Brown Bin. Not everyone has a brown bin, or even one of the dinky food-waste bins. Those living in blocks of flats, or who otherwise lack council-recognised 'street access', do not. They were once able to apply for a wormery instead, but the main selling point - a supply of liquid fertilizer - was of surprising limited appeal to those without gardens. Despite the council's inability to understand flats, they make up 75% of all the households in Southwark, of which over 80% are purpose-built blocks, suggesting that brown bins are a privilege afforded only to a minority. The assumption that any particular resident is necessarily fortunate enough to receive the council's benevolent favours, from brown bins to green bags, is therefore extremely questionable.

woodrot Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > ...imagine if they came to ED. I > shudder at the thought I wouldn't worry if I were you. Competition is said to be good for the soul.

yeknomyeknom Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > My sister caught this. I tried to convince her to > use a more humane method but no joy. Does she > have mice or rats? What do we think? It looks about the size of a mouse-trap to me, which would make it a mouse. A rat. on the other hand, would be about the size of a rat-trap.