Burbage

Before this gets out of hand*, I'd like to put this thread back on track.

First of all, I'm happy to second Peckhamgatecrasher's suggestion of palmiferous buttons. However, I have reservations about the jackets, though not for reasons of taste, but of luridity.

That's because, earlier this week, I did some research. Specifically, I did some research in the small hours at Sainsbury's car park. As you'd expect, there were plenty of foxes. Even better, it's a clear space with few cars and a lovely smooth surface. I don't have the shape for proper tests, but I'm fairly convinced that a bicycle could outrun a fox. And, given the disturbing idea of snares and the impracticality of shooting, a catch-and-release scheme suggested itself as preferable**, especially given the proximity of the Lewisham and Lambeth borders***.

There are only two difficulties. First, though muted colours may help maintain the element of surprise, they are not conducive to the long-term health of nocturnal bicyclists. Second, we'd need a suitable capture device.

The latter I will leave to wiser heads (something with hockey sticks and a duvet cover, perhaps), but for the jacket I propose we opt for both pink and green, commissioning a reversible garment offering both discretion and visibility. As we're most likely to stay indoors if it's raining, we'd not need any fancy fabrics, and a modestly stout flannel would be sufficient.

Notes

* Tolly and brum may care to reconsider. Apart from the health and safety implications (tails and spokes don't mix), the reason why vixens make that noise would compromise the cover of any volunteer, in as many senses as you care for.

** I have consulted no experts as yet, but any questions regarding humaneness should be directed to them.

*** For the benefit of any readers from Rotherhithe, possibly alarmed by reports in the Southwark News, I would like to emphasise that our aim is to reduce the impact of vermin on our slumbers, rather than to abuse domestic animals for fun. In order to comply with legislation, and maintain the reputation of East Dulwich, we're keen to ensure that no activity could be mistaken for sport or constitute amusement (cf. the Peckham Rye Fete thread). Or, for that matter, wander unescorted beyond the boundaries of delusion.

Most foxes get run over sooner or later but, failing that, it is still legal to hunt them, provided you don't use dogs.

Unfortunately, forming a hunt is a tricky prospect. Horses are scarce, and those I've seen in the area wouldn't suit at all. They may be able to clear a stick on a bucket, but a succession of garden fences would be beyond them. As for pogo-sticks and microlights, both come at the price of collateral damage.

In any case, external support is unlikely. The formation of an East Dulwich Hunt was raised with our MP a few years ago, but she declined to lend support or even acknowledge the problem - presumably our foxes, though noisy, cannot be heard in Tufnell Park.

Hunting is not the only option, however, as foxes are predated by bears and wolves. We have, close by, a useful tract of ancient forest, and a dynamic Wildlife Trust that's keen and eager to increase biodiversity. Perhaps someone should have a word.

It's not just EDmummy. I noticed it too, but wasn't sure what it was.

If it was jettisoned fuel, then it is a serious matter, subject to a number of regulations. The CAA, the airline industry lobby group and regulator, takes it so seriously that it's necessary to submit a Freedom of Information request just so see their legal boilerplate, as evidenced in June.

Alert readers, with a Google of their own, may have noticed the suave mendacity of a certain Jamieson, an erstwhile Transport minister who, in 2003, gave a different answer to much the same question, before stepping down in 2005 to spend more time with a bus company.

Briefly, Jamieson claimed there were only 19 jettisoning incidents in UK airspace from civilian aircraft in 2002, quoting figures from the Mandatory Occurrence Reporting Scheme (run by the CAA), though also stating that it would be absurdly costly and/or impossible to provide any details of the events recorded. The CAA's response, probably inadvertently, possibly indifferently, explains that the Mandatory Occurrence Reporting Scheme isn't very Mandatory, and doesn't apply to fuel jettisoned in 'insignificant' quantities, by mistake or just for fun.

Unnecessary dumping is, in theory, frowned upon and there are fines for offenders. Naturally, they don't get handed out very often, as the infringement has to be reported and investigated and prosecuted and, unless an airline sticks its own hands up, it's presumably next-to-impossible to find the responsible plane. But where someone does get found out, a swingeing fine of ?2,500 can be imposed - considerably more than a bus driver earns in a month and thus a stiff deterrent to any multi-billion pound airline company.

In short, however much it smells, and however many people noticed and however much it may damage the lungs of adults, children, pets and vermin, there's stuff-all we can do about it and nobody cares.

Have a lovely weekend.

TMS should be on Long Wave at around 200 kHz (it usually transmits Radio 4, which is probably what's on it now).

The signal should reach Spain, but might depend on 'atmospherics', local geography and whether there are transmitters nearer (or more powerful) working on the same frequency.

With respect, Mr Marmora Man, stuff and nonsense.

Timed tickets work nicely in many places - and do here to some extent, in that travelcards are doomed to expire in the small hours and usually do so. Oyster card readers register the date and time of boarding, and the bus you get on, and they deduct a fixed fare on boarding a bus, irrespective of where you get off, or where you hope to be going.

The technical problem is not in the calculations, but that the buses don't upload the data in real time (they're uploaded in bulk at the end of the run), so anything time-dependent won't work. However, the main Oyster system does have a price-capping system (so PAYG bus users never pay more than for a one-day bus pass) which should cope with this issue very easily. Paper tickets, which have the date and time printed on them already, shouldn't pose any problems at all.

Anyhow, as Jeremy points out, the unfairness remains. If you travel by tube or train ticket, you can change as often as you need to to get from point A to point B for a single fare. On the buses, you have to pay again each time you change. For ED residents on PAYG, taking the bus to Oval costs twice as much as taking the bus to TCR.

On balance I'm more than a little suspicious of Boris' response. Equally, there seems little evidence that those on PAYG are disproportionately stung, and, in any case TfL does concessions for those that need them. But I'd also bitterly resent having to pay twice as much to visit Vauxhall as the Elephant.

Amidst the political flim-flam of the past few of weeks, the deeply unfashionable Liberal Democrats chose to kick off a campaign for one-hour bus tickets aimed at solving premature ejection problems. (BBC article)

Boris, however, considers the idea far too complicated and expensive and, he reckons, it'll only benefit a minority.

Which probably gives the lie to the whole business. London buses take over half a billion quid in subsidy, and even then they only keep the service running (when it's not snowing) by shafting the few poor souls who have to pay full-price for their own tickets. An ageing population and rising birth-rate are already adding to the free-ride brigade and, over the next couple of years, hordes of unemployed and/or bankrupts will be qualifying for concessions. If there's one thing TfL won't be doing, it's finding ways of reducing their existing revenue.

That may change in future, so I wouldn't rule it out entirely (the 'misery tourism' that's transformed some northern cities could work wonders in the home of Dickensian squalor, and the grim spectacle of the Stratford Footraces will be an ideal opportunity to experiment with differential pricing), but in the meantime I doubt Boris will be persuaded.

In other crossing news, TfL admitted on Monday that they'll be upgrading the Grove Junction* to give pedestrians a fighting chance 'early next [financial] year'.

It doesn't really count as a new crossing, but it's the best news I've had all week, so I thought I'd share.

*The A205/Lordship Lane/Dulwich Common junction by what is, for the moment, a Harvester.

I feel very awkward about things like this. It reminds me of a cyclist who got knocked over some years ago at Camberwell Green (the driver shot a U-turn as the lights changed and clipped the cyclist, who hadn't quite cleared the crossing). As I helped the cyclist up, the driver stopped, and offered to take him and the bicycle to the bike shop.

I objected, but the cyclist took the offer, anyhow. Which was understandable. When I get knocked off a bike, I just want to get the bike sorted and get to wherever I was going. Drivers, naturally, prefer the easy, unofficial option to a stain on their licence or a lump on their premium. The trouble is that injuries don't always show up straight away. And I really don't like motorists getting away with careless driving, however 'decent' they claim to be.

For all I know, the driver was honourable, the bike got fixed and the cyclist never found himself at the bottom of a disused quarry. But, four years on, I still feel uncomfortable about it.

The council put up notices last winter inviting tenders from potential suppliers of boating operations, so I don't think either Health and Safety or the wildlife had much say in the matter. It's more likely that the boatyards of Dulwich didn't feel up to the challenge. It's a highly seasonal business and there's not been much winter trade since they turned the Croydon canal into a railway.

intexasatthe moment Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> How terrible when bees are dying at an alarming

> rate. Couldn't there be some sort of system where

> there was a rota of local beekeepers on call to

> rescue any swarms and the police/ Southwark had

> their numbers ?

There is, and Plod/Southwark do have the number of the local Swarm Coordinator. However, as illustrated by Plod's past statements to this board, Plod has difficulty remembering its own numbers, and the Southwark switchboard is an optimistic experiment in vortical buck-passing, at best.

The council bug-poisoner's number will have been to hand as the council have just moved that function back in-house, and now have targets to fulfill. As Plod will have understoon only too well, such targets easily trump any petty legal restrictions on destroying supposedly protected creatures.

For future reference, the Swarm Coordinator's number for this area is: 07922 147379

Eight months is the longest delay I've had on a letter, which wouldn't have been too bad if it hadn't been a cheque.

Misdelivered post is a different matter, and dealt with much more efficiently. I once spent an evening writing 'not known at this address' on three-dozen envelopes. The next morning I posted them, and the morning after that they were back on my mat.

There are lots of reasons people are in a hurry. Parking meters, unforgiving bosses and train timetables being three of them. And, despite being a self-employed bicyclist with no such pressures on my time, I sometimes get impatient with people who get their CBT from Post Offices, find the ends of escalators surprising or get caught out by the need for money at a checkout.

Although I can't really comment on the merits of the case, not having been there, I'm inclined to imagine there might be something in Hugeuenot's comment. Using a paying-in machine as a desk is likely to be as popular as using an ATM as a baby-changing table. On the other hand, ten paragraphs of outrage would be spectacularly impressive for an apparently minor incident, so there's probably some justification. I hope there is or, heaven forbid, this forum would be quickly swamped with minor gripes about shoddy customer services and rampant oikishness.

I'd like to heartily endorse the sentiments of this thread, and offer my unqualified support to everything and anything, including the palm tree for as long as I, too, remain in negative equity.

I agree with No.

The OED (available to anyone with insomnia and a library card through the council website) illustrates one of the nounal meanings (an object created by morphing) with a quote from T. Hart (et al) in 1982, and the verb with a snippet of similar vintage from a usenet forum relating to a computer game. Though I prefer to think that Mr Hart's Morph was named with another meaning in mind; in the early twentieth century 'morph' was shorthand for a morphine addict.

Given that computer games from the early eighties didn't have pictures in the modern sense, there's no clear link to CGI. Morphing in CGI terms is illustrated by quotes from 1990 at the earliest, and seems to have originated in the US where, I believe, the demand for shows about sticking macaroni to sackcloth has never been large.

So, the two uses of the word are related only by the Greek they come from. And 'cravat-wearing' surely justifies a hyphen.

Eliza.D Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Am i alone in my curiosity.

Unfortunately not. That's why YouTube exists.

Just mind how you go, and don't feel free to keep us posted.

101 is, and very possibly was, the Home Office plan for a national SNEN (single non-emergency number) devoted to anti-social behaviour and community safety issues. Following a vigorous campaign, the scheme was officially adopted around five years ago, with the help of Ofcom, the telecommunications industry and a bunch of local authorities, police forces, fire brigades etc. Since then, plenty of time and money has been spent putting the infrastructure in place and running formal trials and pilots prior to the scheduled 'transitioning' and 'relaunch' in January 2008.

Southwark, to their credit, expressed an interest in joining 'Wave 2' in 2006, rather than waiting for the 2008 rollout. The London Fire Brigade supported it, the Met supported it, the GLA supported it (and put ?250k into a pilot). But something happened.

In the first instance, nobody could work out who should run it. The police wouldn't do it, because their Metcall system wasn't finished (and now that it is finished, they still won't). And the inevitable cross-border issues (e.g. should Barnet pay for calls from Southwark commuters?). And financial issues (The Home Office stopped the funding). But then someone thought of a central switchboard.

So, by last September the pilot (in Barking and Waltham Forest) was up and running and had a favourable report. And the GLA was looking at a possible call-centre solution (which Ealing was already buying into). And in November Boris was promising to 'drive' the 101 project. But, in January, it was declared unfeasible. Except in Barking and Waltham Forest, naturally.. No reason is given, except a bit of mumbling about money.

So, although the public wants it, the infrastructure is in place and a lot of money has been spent, we're not getting it. Instead we've got the Met's shiny "you'll have to ring the council" number and the new "anti-social-behaviour-on-buses-but-presumably-not-trams" hotline.

Joined-up government in action.

Keef Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> I'm with Sean on this one, say what you will about

> the goverment, this is a good idea,

Up to a point. It's a whole four-and-a-bit months since the Met launched a campaign with the strapline "You now only need to know two numbers to contact the Metropolitan Police". The success of that has obviously opened minds.

Does anyone remember what 101 was for?

It's unfortunate that Mr Mills' wrongdoing has been linked with Ms Jowell, and there is no justification for it. A rigorous Parliamentary Inquiry into the matter comprehensively cleared Ms Jowell of any breach of the rules, judging that, as dulwichmum points out, it is not an offence to be unsurprised by ?350,000 in the housekeeping (or, for that matter, to overstate your rent by a factor of five).

Mistaking the price of a house for small-change, though odd, is not in itself wrong. It might not be the best qualification for someone who's supposed to be delivering a multi-billion-quid project to a swamp near Stratford, but it's not wrong. Not like, for example, being browbeaten into war on the basis of a press-officer's googling. But I'm sure that was just a silly mistake, too.

I wouldn't mind being "forced into a position" with ?60m of government funds. I'd be tempted to do a lot of dithering for that.

But, as long as it doesn't go all Metronet, I suppose it's good news. Though I'm not entirely sure what the point is. Doesn't this merely replace existing services that they've broken or are planning to break? And isn't the most pressing demand for transport to the City and Westminster and Camden? What demand is a line from Clapham to Dalston supposed to serve?

The double-red thing is for the third set, which lives on Upland Road, which is (or was last night) single-lane at the junction. Older readers will remember this arrangement from when it was first trialled in December, when the Upland Road holes was excavated for the second time, but before mining had started on Friern Road.

Apparently:

http://www.nationalgrid.com/uk/Gas/Connections/competitive_connections.htm

There are many reasons behind the price increases. High fuel costs, the falling pound, insurgent trolls, poor weather, spruce plague, the minimum wage and price-fixing have all been blamed.

But our economy will only remain the strongest and the most able to weather the global collapse if we do our patriotic duty and spend all we've got and then some. Complaining about the price of christmas trees, especially at this time of year, is tantamount to treason.

A fairly comprehensive guide to the tree issue was in the Independent a little while ago, covering nearly all the ways in which you can expensively mark the season, even if you're allergic to trees.

There are two inexpensive alternatives which the Independent nobly fails to mention. The first being the traditional one of using the same tree each year - over-summering the morbid twig in a bucket in the garden, and primping it mercilessly each Advent. It doesn't work very well, but it's a start and, once it's covered with obscene naffery it hardly looks any different. Although it's possible to grow new trees, you need space for that; allotment societies have bye-laws and unsold playing fields are in short supply.

The second alternative is to have nothing to do with trees, relatives or tinsel at all, and reject all the pointless flummery invented by Victorian self-publicists that only serves to ruin a perfectly good public holiday. Although atheistic frugality-chic is still an emerging phenomenon, it should be entrenched by this time next year.

In answer to PeckhamRose's question, I think it's because Goose lives in a privately-managed block of flats and therefore does not have 'street access'.

kford Wrote:

> And the people who enter a crossing when the green

> man is flashing are a pain...

Worry no more. It's been a while since I saw a flashing green man in London. Those pedestrians who bother to use crossings mostly get a 'blank' phase which, as you'd expect, causes a fair deal of confusion.

In an odd spasm of common sense, the DfT is currently pressing for the 'blank' phase to be replaced with an innovative 'red man' in order to make things a bit clearer. Success isn't guaranteed - older readers may remember that an apparently simple two-colour safety system has proved more than a challenge to the most experienced, sober and overpaid of train drivers - but it's the thought that counts.

JenSpen Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> I'm sure there is a valid reason why there

> are no pedestrian lights there, but I can't

> imagine what it is.

In another thread a while ago, it was suggested that the Grove junction has been earmarked for modernization, which may include an accommodation for pedestrians. The work isn't yet scheduled, but a preliminary announcement on the development of a framework for assessing the priorities of such junctions was announced only nine or ten months ago. A quick skim of the associated paperwork, however, suggested that allowing traffic to flow freely round the Grove junction is of vital importance in maintaining the Battersea Rise tailback, so although the pedestrian phase might be restored, I very much doubt they'll be handing out lights.

The pedestrian phase (a bit when the lights are red for all vehicles at the same time) disappeared from the Grove junction some time ago. Around the time, older readers may remember, that the 'flashing' phase of pedestrian lights gave way to the contemporary 'blank' phase which is much less confusing for those with intermittent vision. And around the time that a TfL attempt to impose a better 'pedestrian model' caused the greatest simultaneous traffic-light failure in living memory, since which, understandably given the ensuing chaos, TfL have wisely ignored pedestrians wherever possible.

Although that's not necessarily the reason why pedestrians outside the Harvester are deemed expendable, it's certainly the most socially acceptable that I can imagine. In any case, I have taken the liberty of delving into the orange narcissism of a local councillor in an attempt to direct his mind, which is currently wandering on a quaintly disturbing crusade, to this very issue.