Burbage

Loz Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Interesting that you should pick up on 'foreign' > investment. Because home grown investment > companies would have done it differently? It's a point echoed in a recent article in The Economist, which is hardly a bastion of insularity, and there seems to be something in it. The theory of inward investment is that a overseas company, say Tata, buys up a failing UK-owned business and, through the force of offshore money, local talent and eye-watering bribes from the Treasury, transforms it into a failing overseas-owned business that, in passing, rewards the offshore investors handsomely and keeps a few thousand off the claimant count for a while. The nation's bashful history in railways, car-making, steelworking and nuclear engineering is ample evidence of that, with 'green technology' limbering up as I write. As the Economist hasn't been the first to point out, the noble acquirers of redoubtable UK firms do tend to strip the assets and spit out the husks, along with all the workers, of everything they buy, without noticeably investing in anything except, on occasion, the fancy financial vehicles they need to work their magic. That's not always so, but only because foreign investment isn't always aimed at businesses. The Heygate is a lively example of another sort of 'inward investment' that, no doubt, will bring cheer to many wallets, if none that spend much time onshore. This isn't new, of course, and older readers may remember the good old days of PFI, when contracts to manage hospitals were sold almost as soon as they were signed, at twice the price or more, to middle-eastern wealth funds with no obvious experience or interest in healthcare. Though, to be fair, the loss to the NHS we're seeing now was amply made up for by the votes gained by Labour at the time so, up to a point, it's swings and roundabouts. It might be a stretch to pin the blame entirely on foreign owners of capital, and there are some home-grown opportunists about. However, as court reports and inquiries alike suggest, capital can cheerfully be both onshore and offshore at one and the same time, depending on exactly who's asking. Which means, if anything, the distinction is probably meaningless and that "home-grown investment" is at best a euphemistic synonym for the other sort.

Jeremy Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Was the coalition worse than a minority > conservative government? It was worse for the LibDems, who got a kicking for everything the Tories did (tuition fees) and not much credit for the few pledges they got through (e.g. dropping income tax threshold, creating a government-backed pension scheme, which the Tories naturally nicked), despite having less than 1/5th of the cabinet. All folk remember now is that the LibDems did the tuition fee thing, and they went into secret talks with the Tories to stitch up the coalition. But, to be fair - they went into secret talks with Labour, too - that's how coalitions happen. They could have not had secret talks, and then we'd have had to have another go at an election but, given the fraught financial conditions of the time, it was probably best we didn't. A minority Tory government simply wouldn't have been possible. A government can't be formed with a minority, and so Brown would have hung on as PM, despite having resigned as Labour leader, until a coalition had been brokered by Whitehall. That was a prospect that nobody, with the possible exception of Brown, much fancied.

Oldtincan Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > So London prices falling at their fastest rate in > 8 years... They mention "prime central London" and though that's a phrase that, in the mouth of a skilled estate agent, can mean exactly Thamesmead, I think they have the posh bits in mind. In which case, it's only to be expected. That's partly because of the stamp duty rises, but mostly because our finest institutions are understandably reluctant to launder money while the FCA is still making a show of being a regulator. Those who can hang on, however, should do so. Whatever happens in the next few years, the chance of a government introducing sensible land or wealth taxes, like they have on the perfidious continent, look less than zero. Which means, for the rest of us, stability and the certainty that rent reductions will not appear, in the way they never do and, as they never do, we won't miss them when they don't. Nothing to see here, in other words.

**likewise**

???? Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Yes. I thought the Lib Dems did a good job in the > Coalition in hideous circumstances and got an > unfair kicking at the GE - I hope they do well > this time and I'll be voting for them. Agreed.

You should really keep them at least until you are dead. Although financial authorities, such as HMRC and DWP, may only want to inspect receipts from the last seven years or so, that's because there are limits to how far into the past they can be bothered to peer. The police however, judging by what I see on telly, are able to extend their investigations indefinitely. But, unlike the folk on the telly, I would have no idea what I was doing at 11:30 on August 4th 1992, if it wasn't for the receipt from Till 17 at the Doncaster Morrisons. That little slip of paper, that ephemeral list of inadvisable groceries, might well be the only thing between me and life imprisonment, the only proof I wasn't in a Warrington crypt, drawing pentacles round a lifeless verger. You may resent having to store them, but they take up relatively little space - a lot less than the space you're at risk of losing if you don't maintain a library of alibis.

Landy10 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I especially agree about the engine running part > and was wondering when I saw one the other day - > do they need the engines running for the machinery > in the van to work or something? Would genuinely > like to know the answer, if anyone is up on these > matters. Yes. I asked one of them once, and they showed me their innards. There's an intriguing arrangements of rotary linkages, camshafts and the suchlike that go up into Mr Whippy's magic box. They have to be on all the time, like cement mixers, or the glistening mix of chemically-flavoured emulsified pork fat (or whatever it is these days) would lose the air that keeps it frothy and set like lard before it could hit a customer's stomach.

Penguin68 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > The consecrated area only forms part of the area > which is being gardened. Quite. But, on the upside, they seem happy enough with the answers to their seven questions, and are really only grousing about the details of an answer they didn't get to a question they didn't ask. Having reviewed the document, I'm intrigued that they're asking these questions, with impressive braggadocio, for "the purposes of the ecosystems services assessments", especially as at least four of their questions are on procedural matters that aren't likely to bother the hedgehogs. I suppose it's a free market, and any underemployed chucklemonger can have a go if they fancy it, but I'd have thought any competent practitioner would be able to count a tree when they saw one, without having to bother the council.

TheArtfulDogger Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Now the companies need to reduce the number of > estimated bills so are spending millions (which > ultimately we will pay for) to install so called > smart meters because they tried to save money by > getting rid of the majority of their meter readers > in the first place. It's a bit more nuanced than that. For a start, the smart meters are a key plank in the Government's carbon-reduction strategy, the thinking being that staring at a meter uses less energy than watching television. The consumer benefit to this is that, when we've all been smartened up, we'll be able to switch tariffs at half-hourly intervals, and thus saving ourselves billions, and cough up for our energy as we use it, saving the industry ditto. Secondly, the meter readers (or 'pavement reading inefficiencies' in the jargon) didn't just pound the mean streets to make sure you've not been dialling-in porkies, they were also obliged to check the meters were safe, at least once every two years. Happily, Ofgem has relaxed this, deciding "to repeal the two-yearly meter inspection licence conditions in gas and electricity in their entirety", so that suppliers can "refocus resource on data driven theft strategies" through the Theft Risk Assessment Service, a digital repository of customer data run by Electralink, an outfit owned by the main distributors (the folk that operate the network) that, among other things, mines that data to "improve marketing strategies based on analysis of customer churn propensity". Perhaps safety checks weren't necessary after all, as many furious landlords have argued over the years, and protecting revenue really is more important than preventing customers being blown to pieces. But I'm not sure everyone would agree. The big problem faced by the government (or, more accurately, those that lobby the government) is that the untold benefits of tariff-switching are still a mystery to many customers, which is annoying to parts the industry. To help, in the words of Utility Week "the regulator?s idea of what constitutes 'simpler and clearer' has evolved" and so, though they still pretend to offer the famous 'four tariffs', those tariffs now differ according to where you live, how you pay, whether you take dual fuel, how much you fancy a fixed-rate bet, how long you want to be locked in, what penalties you'll accept for unlocking yourself, whether you want a rebate and if you're a shareholder. Which is neither clear nor simple. Especially when you consider that most of the 'savings' will only appear if the customer guesses better than the suppliers how prices will move in future. Given suppliers can hedge their risks in a way that customers can't, it's at best a very rigged lottery. Nevertheless, it's still important that we switch and, if we have switched, to switch more often. This is because, as we've virtually no natural resources of our own, and most of our utilities are in offshore hands, the only current benefit to the economy comes through the comparison sites, who charge hefty fees, via the suppliers (which is why the cheapest deals can't be got through comparison sites). Stung by the challenge to help leverage the potential Ofgem recently authorised a new Central Registration Service (CRS), an offshoot of the Data and Communications Company (DCC - an inevitable tentacle of Capita), which will soon intermediate all switching, charging a cheerful "mix of ex-post and ex-ante fees", in a way described in a recent consultation response as 'confusing', once they've decided how it will work (and whether it's viable). More vitally, the DCC, like Electralink, will be allowed to shiver like a spider in a massive web, connecting every meter to a central respository of monetizable data, available to all (save those that work out how to steal it) for a fee. Which, they're obviously hoping, will spawn such a revolution in whizzy startuppery that we'll never have to worry about the economy again.

dino99 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > But other than that, they've now been sitting > there for 3 weeks, and the council hasn't done > anything else. What evidence have you that the council's doing nothing? First, it's hazardous waste, and the council won't have the skills or expertise to deal with it. Moreover, even if they could, there's probably something buried in the secret contract with Veolia saying that they can't. Veolia, of course, do have the skills and expertise, but their contract with the council probably won't cover handling hazardous waste. Therefore, to move this stuff, the council would have to get their lawyers to ask Veolia's lawyers if it's alright for them to prepare a tender document for the job, preparatory to launching a bidding process for such a tender. That's unlikely to be very quick. Second, it's clearly marked as the scene of an environmental crime. As far as I know, it's a offence for even a council to knowingly tamper with any evidence that may be required for an investigation or prosecution, and so, before any of the strategic work involved in preparing for the removal of the tiles can be started, the police will have to be approached for their explicit consent. Which may take some time, depending on the priority given to the investigation and whether the police themselves need to make preparations for securing the evidence along the lines above. In either case, that's entirely outside the council's control. Thirdly, although a temporary tactical containment strategy might seem an obvious first response, that's not necessarily the case. Any sort of cover or cabinet would need to be securely installed, to avoid it becoming a trip hazard in itself, and that would require an appropriate design brief to be drawn up, suppliers invited to bid, the proposals independently assessed, cost-benefit analyses run, consultations carried out, risk assessments drafted, planning permission gained and traffic management orders sought. None of that is quick, either. Three weeks is a ridiculously short time for any of the above to be even started, let alone completed. It takes four years to make a zebra crossing, and that's just half a lick of paint, so let's have a less of this instant-gratification foot-stamping. I'm sure you have the best of motives but, after all, it's only a few asbestos tiles, and won't kill any of the children that play with them for whatever's left of their lifetimes.

bargee99 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > It is > still upsetting to me to spend ?850 per bike for a > road storage facility when in most cases they can > be taken indoors. Perhaps, from your obviously privileged position, you're not aware that the majority (around 75%) of Southwark residents live in flats, have no access to a garden (even if it was safe to leave a bicycle outside), and cannot for safety reasons store anything in the hall. Moreover, more than half of flat-dwellers live above the ground floor, and most of those in flats that are not served by lifts. In other words, it's as validly argued that most cars could be taken indoors, if the owners would only open the front windows up a bit, or at least be parked in the front garden. But most, for some reason, seem happy to rely on the implicit subsidy of a 'poorly-priced public resource', in the form of rent-free land (worth a lot more than ?850 a year at current parking rates), or the many other costs (notably air pollution, but also a craven dependence on vicious regimes, for which we sacrifice actual lives) that the self-entitled motorist prefers to ignore, imagining the rest of us somehow benefit from their ability to spend money they haven't earned on something they can't accommodate.

Alan Medic Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Interestingly my work email address has been used > to try and get at least two clients to alter the > bank account into which they pay us. In one case > it worked and having seen the emails from 'me' > they were quite convincing. We reported it to > Action Fraud who pass on details to the police if > they think there is a case. They decided there > wasn't enough to lead to a conviction. That suggests they've got into your system somehow. If it only affects one client, then it might have been at the other end, but with two it looks like they got in at this end. There are lots of ways of doing that, from using infected browsers (if you use webmail), phones or wifi/routers to synchronise email to their own machinery, or simply hacking having the time and patience to borrow passwords (the SWIFT hack was done, apparently, by hacking bank webcams and using them to spy staff entering passwords). It depends a bit on where they are - if they're in the same building (or office - there's never been a shortage of disgruntled employees or contractors), some methods will be easier, but it can be done from anywhere. They then simply wait until something interesting goes out and then, when it does, swap or insert a message into the conversation. Having access to the server means they can perfectly spoof the message, so there's no clue as to who they are, or where they are. Given the likelihood that any available evidence will lead to the IP address of a hacked toaster of an innocent tailor in Venezuela (or similar), ActionFraud can't honestly recommend Plod spends much time on it, unless the fraud's of a size to interest Interpol. The bank account is a clue, but it can be surprisingly difficult to prove who the beneficial owner of a bank account is, let alone that they knowingly received the proceeds of crime, especially if it's joint account, belongs to a trust or is registered to someone who's dead or offshore. So, unless there's a clear and consistent pattern of inflows, it's unlikely to get to court. Besides, the banks aren't always co-operative, being somewhat shy of attracting more fines for having laundering controls that don't work. There are some protections against this sort of attack, but they're tricky and expensive, relying mostly on detecting intrusions and anomalous traffic, which takes specialist skills that even trained IT folk don't often have. Changing passwords regularly, and insisting on complex ones, is the easiest, but that won't always work. The only other way is not to rely on email alone for transactions, insisting on phone (or post) confirmation before money's transferred. But that requires the co-operation of clients, suppliers etc., which won't always happen.

Alan Medic Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I've been > asked to see if I could find a solution even > though I know next to nothing about the subject. Loz has got the reasons right. But as for a solution, there isn't one, as such. This is partly Microsoft's fault, as they make it very difficult for users to see exactly where an email has originated from. It's also not helped by the filtering options, and some other basic security measures, being premium-priced add-ons. Personally, I think selling basic security features as premium-priced 'enhancements' isn't so nice, but all the vendors do it and, as they've got billions that I haven't, are better placed than I to see the upsides of malicious complacency. There are, however, partial solutions. Not all of them will suit, depending on what your office does, who it corresponds with and how the management responds to suggestions that they might find mildly inconvenient. But I reckon you could get a few bullet points for a powerpoint together, and that might be all you need, even if it is in the private sector. The first thing to consider is rejecting all email where the 'From' address doesn't match the authorised server for that domain. This may already be happening, but won't reject much, as lots of companies have outsourced email to Microsoft, Google etc. so scammers only need to do the same and their stuff gets through. Moreover, this this suggests it's only an option on some contracts. Besides, not everyone you do business with will have bothered setting up their email servers correctly, so it's not always practicable. The second is to ensure a degree of hygiene. Make sure email passwords are changed regularly, and strong passwords are used. Then ensure any obsolete accounts are either deleted or rerouted. Ensure, in addition, that any catch-all accounts are either regularly monitored or done away with. Some places do this already. But in others, where there are senior managers capable of reading their own email, the suggestion that they change their passwords regularly might be viewed as an act of North Korean diplomacy, and met it with either blank incomprehension or a P45. Tread carefully. You can only do your best. The third is to ensure the server simply deletes any mis-addressed emails, rather than bouncing them, as that's easily exploited to find out, for example, what genuine email addresses still exist. As can out-of-office auto-replies, which are best done away with, though again, be careful as some will be using those as part of a delegation strategy. The fourth is to consider some sort of whitelist (an 'allow list' in Microsoft-speak), whereby only email from specific domains is accepted. Again, this isn't much use if you're just looking at the 'From' field - as that can be easily spoofed. Some Exchange licences allow a bit better control, up to a point, through the Connection Filtering options, though they're not much fun to work with, and don't quite allow everything you'd want. The fifth is to ensure there is some sort of spam filtering happening. MS does some by default, and there are all sorts of options you might usefully tweak for those, such as quarantining messages so users can make their own minds up. But that might depend on what sort of minds your colleagues are blessed with and your predicament suggests they're not at the pointy end of the pyramid (though, to be fair, they have noticed the dodgy emails, which puts them a few rungs above most). The sixth, and best, solution is to hire people who do know what they're doing and train staff properly. The problem with that is that much of the training in IT is delivered by vendors who, for guessable reasons, tend not to see much difference between education and advertising and rather skimp on the difficult bits. But who doesn't? Anyhow, that's all I can offer, so good luck with it.

Blanche Cameron Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > > Who is responsible for the cover-up? Harrison > landscape consultants for leaving the soldiers? > graves off plans? The trees, obviously. Though, by allowing the cemetery to become so scandalously overgrown, and turning a blind eye to the shifting of memorials and remains by malicious vegetation, the council must bear some of the blame. That said, not all graves were marked in the first place, so it's hardly surprising if people can't find them now, especially if they have no family connection to the site.

Jules-and-Boo Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Volunteeer - gives up time to do things for others As do unpaid interns. But organisations that rely on those haven't come in for undue praise recently, either. Besides, volunteering can be murky. Take, for example, Groundwork, a charity reliant on volunteers to help do its work of 'creating better and greener places'. Its roots, however, are in the Countryside Commission, now the government agency known as Natural England. And so some of the 'volunteers' aren't so much volunteers as labour units supplied on referral from the JobCentre via Serco, Avanta et al. for the 'work programme'. Whether the real volunteers are aware of the role of the outsourcers, or of Groundwork's involvement in sending out sanctions letters to unwilling 'volunteers', or of the European Social Fund money that's being used to cover up the JobCentre's inability to find actual jobs, is unclear. Even if they do, there's an incentive to keep quiet, in the implicit promise of work beyond volunteering. And, looked at in in another way, Groundwork's effectively a limb of government that can tout for donations and rely on volunteers, like any other charity, in the course of doing government work. Though, by being a sub-contractor to Serco, Avanta et. al., rather than the DWP, it's not publicly accountable, and that doesn't feel quite right. In other Big Society news, it's worth looking at conclusion 7 of a recent report into the government's National Citizen Service, set up with a deliberately deceptive structure. Serco, in that case, got out in time, but not all have exited so gracefully, and I suspect questions might be asked about this one. Again, here's a not-bad-idea that, because of its public-private-charity structure, doesn't look quite right, either. Both, in different ways and to different extents, are using charitable organisations almost as smokescreens. But that shouldn't, whether they rely on volunteers or not, absolve them from the same levels of accountability as any other organisation. Yet so often it does, because it's so difficult for most of us to get angry with a volunteer, or lay into a company that doesn't pay tax. So I would take Lynne's side here - especially if the 'person in charge' wasn't a volunteer (they often aren't, if only for insurance reasons). But what I don't understand is why Lynne decided to bother the community with her foot-stamping prose rather than unbottling the green ink and doing the thing in style. Write to the management, why don't you?

alice Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > agreed. how can such a person still be in post? It is surprising at first glance. I'm no expert, but I think it's very unusual for a lease to explicitly discriminate against those who become unable to live independently, and I'm not sure it's entirely legal. It surely can't be right to, say, terminate a lease and evict a couple if one of them can't put their own socks on. But, as I said, I'm no expert, and I'm sure they've some exquisitely expensive lawyers. From a business perspective, however, it makes perfect sense. For Hanover also sells enhanced care accommodation, apparently in separate compounds, and it would make good business to treat their run-of-the-mill retirement homes as feedlots for the pricier services. In which case a 'pay up or get out' policy is entirely cogent. Obviously, as a not-for-profit there aren't any shareholders trying to benefit, but if the pay of the bosses is performance-related, or they have interests in any preferred providers, that might not matter. In either case, I guess the job of the manager will be, at least in part, to prod those residents with a loosening grip on the perch, persuading them to sell up (presumably via Hanover) and move to something from the autumn catalogue. At present, those two classes of accommodation are all that Hanover offers. But, curiously, they also own a chalk-pit, suggesting a sufficiently dynamic management might profitably find room for a synergistic expansion of their offerings. Assuming they haven't already.

Sally Eva Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > b) therefore it shouldn't provide burial space for > anyone. At one point, their (b) was their (a), and there wasn't a (b) at all. The (b) only came in because some object to cremation on religious grounds and, at the time, there wasn't much of an alternative. As the Guardian piece pointed out, however, more methods are becoming available. One it mentioned was composting, though I doubt that would be viable in London given the likelihood of fly-tipping, especially around Christmas. Reading it, I remembered a brochure for what appears to be a more practical solution. I'm no expert, so I've scanned and uploaded it here, so those who know better can make of it what they will.

This doesn't seem to have had a mention before, but Southwark has opened its thrilling Draft Kerbside Strategy for consultation by the huddled masses. It seems depressingly focussed on parking, but I'm sure someone must have something to say about that. For those that don't, there are plenty of free-form boxes for comments about dog mess or pheasants.

ianr Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I know that's not what you asked about, MM, but it > is painful to see how basic DIY seems to have > declined over the years. As will yours, once you've done your back in, had your knees give out and found your sight beginning to fail. An ageing and increasingly isolated population has led to a fairly predatory market in simple household tasks. Happily, we have the internet, which at least allows for the sort of hyper-neighbourliness that worldwiser kindly offered. I am not sure which will win out, but I know what I hope.

dbboy Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > When are you going to post the FOCC constitution > and minutes of meetings? As an unincorporated association, they don't have to publish anything (or even, provided they don't have a surplus, register with HMRC). As directors are personally liable for the actions of the group, there's no need. That need would only arise if, or when, they wanted to receive public money directly. That said, things can get awkward if they accidentally confuse themselves with another group or claim to speak for other properly-constituted groups with whom confusion may be likely. Which makes their involvement in the Southwark Greenspaces Forum (SGF) a matter of some interest. The SGF emerged out of nearly nowhere (a meeting was held last July to answer the question 'Does Southwark Need a Green Space Forum', which it predictably did) and then swiftly entangled itself with the pre-existing London Green Space Friends Network (LGSFN), a division of the apparently respectable National Federation of Parks and Green Spaces. Presumably FOCC is now part of the LGSFN and possibly speaking for any other Friends group that turned up, didn't notice or failed to object. That may unfairly suspicious of me, but it is impossible to tell as the last time LGSFN published minutes was in 2014 (when the 'Southwark' rep was from the Friends of Dulwich Park) All this parochial usurpation is entertaining enough (though unlikely to please any real Friends groups that find SGF claiming to represent them), but it does give some cause for concern. Genuine Friends groups, after all, do a real job, and raise real funds from real sponsors for real projects, and it would be a shame if any of that hard work was put at risk. Although Southwark Council (and Lambeth) might be wise to such tactics, having come across them in various guises before, not everyone can tell the difference between a genuine representative body and a bunch of shouty deadbeats. Despite the hard realities that have forced corporations to turn their hand to the rancid depradations of the gig economy, a surprising amount of greenwash money still oozes from the City and, provided it ticks the right boxes, isn't always too careful about where it ends up.

kiera Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > council put in their planning application that > clearance of trees and scrub would not be carried > out during the bird nesting season. That's very nearly right. But the words in the conservation strategy, based on the arboricultural assessment that was a condition of the planning application (which was subsequently approved etc.), are: "removal of trees and scrub outside the breeding bird season or following a check for nesting birds" It's a small word, 'or', but it does mean something. And at this time of the year, when most trees aren't yet in leaf, it's not difficult to see (or hear) a nest. Not that tree-nesting birds do much nesting before the leaves are out, not even those, like the woodpeckers, that hide their nests in holes. And as for the birds that nest in undergrowth, the robins and goldfinches, for example, they tend to leave it even later, until decent cover of new growth has arisen. But that shouldn't matter. This is about the discriminate removal of innocent trees, deceptively youthful remnants of the Ancient Great North Wood that stood even as the dinosaurs were grazing Peckham Rye and that provided, with the bounteous generosity of nature, food for King Arthur, forage for King Caractacus and firewood for King Akhnaten, in a callous campaign of brutal tidying by an authoritarian, speciesist council, deaf to the waving of democratic placards, blind to the most arrant shoutiness, and disrespectful in the way they're either robbing the environment of the vital food of corporal recycling, or contrarywise, according to faith, temperament and expedience. In that context, the presence or absence of amorous dicky-birds shouldn't really make much difference. It's the trees (and knotweed) we should be thinking of, and they're being sacrificed, as the evil council has no qualms in admitting, merely to: "minimise the impact on the adjacent wildlife site, and so as to create glades and increase the area of woodland edge habitat which is valuable in particular to foraging bats, birds, reptiles and invertebrates (for example speckled wood butterfly which prefers dappled shade)" If my blood wasn't boiling already, that would be enough to set it simmering, and I'm minded to rush to the barricades. If only Poundland sold megaphones.

Sue Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Ivy doesn't strangle trees, I don't think. > > The only damage it can cause to trees is if it > prevents light getting to the leaves. Sort-of. Usually, in proper woodland, the ivy and tree will more-or-less happily co-exist. If the ivy invades the canopy, and starts outcompeting the tree for light, it's usually because the tree is on its way out, anyway. The problem with ivy isn't so much it will damage the tree - or make it more susceptible to wind damage - but that it makes the tree difficult to monitor effectively, and so rotten or diseased trunks and branches (which naturally fall from even healthy trees from time to time) mightn't be spotted before they fall down. In publicly-accessible woodlands, at least near paths, ivy is routinely cleared for that reason, among others. Most urban woodland (and much of that elsewhere) isn't 'proper' woodland, in that it's too young or small or disturbed to have a stable or sustainable balance of light, soil structure and undergrowth. Which means brambles and ivy tend to dominate, providing nice homes for rats and crowding out more interesting plants and reducing biodiversity. Regular clearances of ivy, and brambles, are thus a necessary evil in managed woodland. The only alternative is to leave them alone (and undisturbed, even by environmentally-conscious humans) for a couple of centuries, but that's a less popular option.

One Tree Hill is, as the name implies, a hill. As a hill, it's host to a variety of land uses, including roads, houses, a church, a school and a bit of the cemetery. The bulk of it, including the summit, is a public park that is also a Local Nature Reserve (LNR). The park, like the cemetery, is managed by the council. For most people who live locally One Tree Hill refers to the park more than it does to the hill itself or Camberwell New Cemetery (CNC). However, it would be pedantically, if unhelpfully, correct to refer to the part of CNC on rising ground to be on One Tree Hill. For what it's worth, the Friends of One Tree Hill did express some constructive concerns over the plans for CNC but, unaccountably, don't seem to have made a nuisance of themselves. Perhaps SSW could call themselves Friends of One Tree Hill as well, and thus redress the balance.

oddlycurious Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Well now I'm intrigued. Care to name names? The names are no secret, being on easily-searchable public registers, but they don't, as yet, seem particularly relevant to the anti-cemetery campaign, or the possible motives behind it, except that their defunctitude presumably left some time on some hands.

lavender27 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Ed-Pete, why would a smart meter have privacy > issues? As Loz suggests, the meter sends signals about energy usage. They send them to your supplier, and to your smartphone, which should be secure enough. Until you remember that you can change your supplier, so your smart meter has to be readable by any supplier on the market. And all their engineers. Including the sub-contracted ones. In short, they can be read by just about anyone. Loz's fear, a well-founded one, is that, as energy usage tends to be at a minumum when a house is unoccupied (even if the lights are on timers), usage patterns are a useful guide as to when the owners are away, and thus a gift to the burglareous. That's a real risk. But it's far from the worst. Last year a botnet, a cluster of thousands of computers that distribute viruses and spam, launched an attack on a large number of sites. That wasn't unusual. What was unusual was that the botnet's computers included a refrigerator, as well as routers, webcams and printers. Shortly afterwards, researchers, in a somewhat underwhelming demonstration, showed how a drone could be used to hack smart lightbulbs. In short, devices with embedded computers can be hacked remotely, and have almost no defences against being hacked. A smart meter has an embedded computer, and so can be hacked. So what?, you might think. If it happens, you can dispute the bill. But you'd be forgetting that the smartmeter talks to your smartphone. The smartphone that contains all your contacts, emails, private messages, photographs, payment details and so on. That's the privacy issue.