Burbage

oddlycurious Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Do SSW support burial for all in Southwark? There is a more relevant question, perhaps. And that's what Cameron and Schaffer's game is. Especially in the light of the comic's unexpected elevation to 'Technical Director' of the organisation that no longer knows its own name, their titular expansion to engulf a legitimate, and friendly, Friends group, and the inflation of their presumptive remit to cover the whole of London, if not the planet. I'm guessing this started out as an imitation of a Greenish landgrab - the usual being to bully your way to a management contract over a harmless piece of wasteland, and then go begging for funding to pay yourself a decent salary on the back of charitable contributions, taxpayer's money and/or the toil of inadvertent volunteers. There are a few of those about, and some have even won contracts from the DWP to implement the workfare nonsense (those brambles don't prune themselves), so it's not impossible. But that wheeze, if such it was, failed. Partly on the simple grounds that, as cemeteries have been used and reused legitimately for millennia, and the laws are very clear about it, there's nothing remotely for them to cling to. And partly because the council, very sensibly, got on with its job regardless of the placards. SSW's stunts did, in passing, cost the council (and thus the taxpayer) an awful lot of money which it hasn't, as yet, recouped. But here's hoping. Despite that defeat however, SSW (or whatever) managed to persist, like a bad case of something icky, expanding their ambitions to cover both dead and undead, and playing discriminatory anti-discrimination cards like the icing on a very wrong sort of sandwich. They've got some sort of support from somewhere, though, or the spacefillers of the local rags wouldn't be recycling the drivel so avidly, but I'm baffled as to what it is, or what it's supposed to achieve. One thing, on current evidence, is certain - they won't be snaffling any consultancy contracts from the afterlife's bewildered - not least because consultancy implies the possession of some sort of knowledge, if not experience. Perhaps more likely is they're attempting to upholster electoral hopes. The economy is slow, I'll grant, and it may not be a pure coincidence that all this activity came shortly after the dissolution of a certain company, and the attempted shuttering of a certain charity (not a very effective shuttering, given the Charity Commission reckon the 2014 accounts are now 645 days overdue). But a councillor's allowance isn't very much and, even so, requires more of a candidate than the ability to unhinge themself on a local forum to the tune of daytime telly. So I'm still baffled.

alice Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > what are you saying? that good landlords aren't > paying tax? No, certainly not, and I'm sorry if I've inadvertently given offence. I would, of course, never wittingly say anything that admitted the existence of something so unimaginable as a good landlord.

cerv Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > "An HMO is required to be licensed with the Local > Authority if it is three or more storeys in height > and is occupied by 5 or more tenants, of which at > least 2 households share one or more basic > amenities including kitchen, bathroom or WC. It is > the landlord/manager?s responsibility to apply to > the Council to license a property." This is right. Furthermore, under section 252 (2) (b) of the Act, a household may be considered a household if "their circumstances are circumstances of a description specified for the purposes of this section in regulations made by the appropriate national authority", so the DCLG (I guess) might be able to clarify on this issue, but only if it's really a problem. And, under section 254 (2) (e), the gimmick of only one tenant paying rent won't work as the condition apply if "rents are payable or other consideration is to be provided in respect of at least one of those persons' occupation of the living accommodation". It's possible this is an oversight on the part of legislators, though given Blair seemed to have shared a flat with almost everyone but Prescott, this seems unlikely. Given what rents are, I'm surprised that a few grand spent on sensible fire safety measures would drive any serious landlord out of the market. It's not as if they've got to make them wheelchair-accessible, as any other business would have to. So I suspect a good few landlords, especially those who've worked out that HMRC might be looking at who's got a licence, are using the change as an excuse to get out before they get caught. If it really does turn out to be a problem, I'm sure the legislators will respond in the fulness of time. In the meantime there is just one legal solution to the OP's landlord's situation, but as it would involve one civil partnership and two adoptions, it's unlikely to work out cheaper than a bunch of intumescent strips.

Good grief. The Independent is not a newspaper, it's a flailing turdberg of clickbait. In short, as others have almost pointed out, this is a marketing scam - which the Independent will have been paid to run. There is, though, a tiny nugget of something a bit like truth there. The 'verbal contract' is indeed a thing. Bbut consumer laws mean it can't be abused over the telephone to domestic addresses and so, for the most part, it isn't. For businesses, however, it's different, and the verbal contract is a risk. But it is already a risk, and has been for over a decade, and there's no obvious way to stop it. I know at least two local businesses that have fallen prey to it, and if you google "opus energy verbal contract", for example, you'll find a bunch of business-owners grumbling about unscrupulous sales agents switching them to exorbitant tariffs without their permission. Opus Energy, being a thoroughly upstanding outfit, has no relationship with such agents and deplores their behaviour, though presumably they get paid somehow, and Opus isn't slow to put a block on the account if you try to switch it back. They will also send you a copy of 'your' contract, complete with forged signature, if you try to complain, suggesting the rogue agents aren't entirely unattached. This is, apart from the lies and the forgery, mostly legal. However, for micro-businesses, such as newsagents, the laws to protect domestic consumer laws are supposed to apply. But you'd not know that from the regulator, who has, in the fine tradition of British regulators, failed to to anything much at all. They will, after a few months of prodding and once Opus' official complaints procedure (which is, unsurprisingly, not quick) has been exhausted (which, itself, takes an almost legalistic eye to accomplish), write a stiff letter forcing Opus to lift the block, but you won't get your money back, and nobody (because Plod takes less than no interest) will be done. Sorry for the rant. This sort of thing makes me quite angry. All these sorts of things, as it happens - the Independent's attempt to gull vulnerable consumers, Opus Energy's persistent and unpunished duplicity, the apathy of Plod, Ofgem's bunch of overpaid uselessness or the calculated carelessness of government. From where I'm sitting, it's long been looking like an insidious epidemic of corporate fraud, determined to scupper every honest attempt to make a living on the part of humbler souls.

ed_pete Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > The problem with this kind of thread is that the > opinions sought are subjective and eventually > everywhere in the locality that sells a coffee > will get a mention. Really? I thought the problem was more usually that some contemptible curmudgeon would leap onto the thread, without thought to the outsourcing zeitgeist, and go banging on about a generation of self-entitled preeners who've never learnt to drink proper coffee, let alone make it, and how, if they had any appreciation of the environment, farmers, food miles, sustainability, the value of money, orang-utans or colonialism, they'd take a good hard look at themselves, salvage some recyclables, make themselves a grinder and a moka pot and go stalk squirrels for their acorns. But maybe I'm wrong.

TheArtfulDogger Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > > I don't think that was what Dan was saying > Angelina, I believe he was saying that he raised a > request for volunteers I didn't notice a request for volunteers. Just 'proactive & talented people' who, presumably, don't do work for nothing. Otherwise there'd not be a need for funding. I may have misunderstood. Perhaps 'proactive & talented' is a shorthand for unpaid workers, with the funding retained to cover all the essential 'project management' and the wages of those who, without a shred of community spirit, have the nerve to charge for the apparently simple job of replacing a few lamp-posts. That would make a bit of sense. Not everyone can manage a project or dig up a lamp-post but, thanks to the knowledge economy turning out to be abjectly suitable for outsourcing, decent designers, marketers, programmers and copywriters can be found on every street corner, simply begging for work, regardless of whether there's any money in it. While such people exist in our community, it would a shame to waste the opportunity to exploit them, if only because they'll be priced out of the area before we know it.

TheCat Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > LOCAL DULWICH WOMAN THINKS SHE CAN PARK LIKE A > COMPLETE @RSEHOLE JUST BY PUTTING HAZARD LIGHTS > ON Silly person. It's not the hazard lights that does the trick, it's the double-parking. The council, or whatever vastly-indebted purveyor of tailored parking solutions it has outsourced the responsibility to, can only enforce the rules on parking. Double-parking, however, is not a parking offence, but an obstruction of the public highway, and thus falls within the purview of the bluebottles. The police, however, have other things to worry about, such as the long walk from Camberwell. This takes, apparently, around forty-five minutes, leaving plenty of time for even the slackest @rsehole to complete their business.

lucyjane1990 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I recently visited a laser clinic on Lordship > Lane. I must say I was quite sceptical about laser > hair removal treatment Not that sceptical, obviously. On an unrelated note, my ever-popular self-help sessions for those suffering high self-esteem are almost fully booked now, but I've two half-hour slots left for next Wednesday. ?120 each, or ?250 the pair.

uncleglen Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I saw this some months ago so I will not be > signing the petition (as well as the number I have > come across in school are obviously men rather > than schoolboys but it is hushed up) > http://news.sky.com/story/kids-in-care-moved-away- > after-refugee-influx-10144373 It's effectively arguing that, to save Whitehall the trouble of organising it properly, Parliament should be allowed to renege on our promises to give some children sanctuary, letting then sleep outdoors and prostitite themselves - a strategy that would have the benefit of discouraging others. I'm not a philosopher, so I can't pinpoint exactly where the ethical sticking-point is in all that. But I do know what a promise looks like, how a democracy is supposed to work and what the word 'sanctuary' means. It was parliament, not local authorities, that voted for the Dubs amendment, and so national government should be responsible for funding and resourcing it properly. If government can break promises at will, and Whitehall can so easily outsource its work to local authorities without being held to account, what exactly is the point of voting, paying taxes or even pretending to be civilised? We can only hope that, at a time when politicians and civil servants alike have particularly strong reasons for giving the impression that they're not entirely impotent and exclusively interested in the betterment of their personal finances, they might be persuaded to think again about abandoning children to a degrading, prospectless future. Especially given they've already done that once this month.

I have a few little questions of my own. a) Who is initiating this project, and who manages the site? Why are they different? b) Several of the TCV ideas can be found in a document from 2013. Which one? And, if nothing has happened since then, why might that be? (feel free to consult previous threads in constructing your response). c) Is there a conservation element to the project? d) If not, will an environmental impact assessment be carried out? I might be being a little unfair, but there are three angles that concern me. The first is that Dawson's Hill is, at least in the view of some, a nature reserve which (according to previous threads on this forum) was deliberately allowed to return to a state of nature, and contains a number of different habitats, all of which have conservation value, and are currently lightly managed by Southwark, alongside other groups*, mainly to clear the litter and otherwise leave well alone. The second is that the council has already identified the site as a potental site for a new, more formal park and for childrens' playground (though there is already a playground, and other facilities, for residents who live on the estate). That hasn't gone forward, but it's not clear why. As these needs arguably compete with the conservation angle, I guess an informed, public debate would be necessary. If only to decide if the playground, for example, should be built on the thoughtfully-tended meadow, or over the deliberately-wild orchard? Thirdly, it's not clear what funding is being applied for. Will it be council funding, out of the Parks budget? If so, is this not a case of a contractor trying to write their own tender? Or is it from a different budget, or somewhere else entirely, in which case how does it fit within the overall Open Spaces plan, and what provisions will be made for maintenance? I am a little concerned because, although the TCV is probably blameless in this regard, it's not unknown for certain groups to attempt land-grabs, or for charities to end up being tax-efficient branches of government - as some did when they unwisely lunged for workfare money and ended up sending out sanctions letters for the DWP while utterly alienating some of the volunteers they'd relied on - and though there can be benefits, there are indubitably downsides, too. I hesitate to annoy. Sometimes there are good reasons to clutter places with facilities and furniture. Sometimes it makes sense to cut down an orchard to make room for a library, or tidy up a cemetery. But Dawson's Hill has been, for decades, one of the few open spaces that's been left to itself, rather than artfully tidied up for the benefit of dog-walkers and joggers. * Including the Dawson's Hill Trust, which did some good work, but seems to have disappeared. A company of that name was registered in 2007, but dissolved in 2009. It still has a website, though it doesn't appear to have been updated since 2004, at www.dawsonshill.org.uk. The domain belongs currently to the Southwark Green Party, who either see value in keeping it alive or don't know how to stop the bills.

red devil Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > > Sawdust is used to bulk up jam for example. > > I Googled this, closest result was this post :)... I suspect uncleglen is from a time before Google. But, as this letter from happier times attests, it was turnips that were used to bulk up jam. The wood was used to make the artificial raspberry seeds.

taper Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Southwark are taking too long to make a decision. > This is meant to expedite presumably. I think we'd > all like to see a decision. Non-determination appeals aren't quick, so I'm guessing Meadow have chosen this moment to freeze things where they are. From this point, Southwark can no longer negotiate further concessions, restrictions or conditions (such as affordability etc) and the issue is now entirely in the hands of the Planning Inspectorate. The process will take three months at least, but if Meadow reckon the council can't justify the delay, and can persuade the Inspectorate of that, then the Inspectorate will have to approve the application. The appeals have now started with the Planning Inspectorate at: https://acp.planninginspectorate.gov.uk/ViewCase.aspx?Caseid=3164823&CoID=0 There are two of them, the second being one against the council's decision not to remove the restrictions. The main appeal is against Southwark, who now have to justify their delay and give reasons why permission would have been denied (assuming it would). If the Inspector accepts these, then all is well. Otherwise, Southwark will have to pay the costs and the application will be waved through as it stands. Southwark should shortly be notifying interested parties (including prior objectors) of the appeal and providing copies of all the documents and representations to the Inspectorate. Interested parties can, however, make additional representations directly to the Planning Inspectorate through the link above, and have until March 7th to do so.

Penguin68 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > - our local Coop could always be ordering more if > their supply is regularly running out before > customers' needs can be fulfilled. It's their bad > on this. I think it's a little trickier than that. Firstly, we don't know how 'regular' demand is, how much it varies on a day-by-day basis, or what factors affect it, or the lag between a co-op order being put in and stuff arriving in the store. If it's volatile, then what 'ordering more' would mean is that the co-op would be taking on, with no guarantee of any return, one of the risks that the relevant businesses should be managing for themselves. Secondly, a 75p loaf is likely to be a loss-leader, and selling more of it may simply lose the store more money. Thirdly, the idea of a loss-leader is to tempt customers, and their grocery budgets, into the store. If all, or most, gets bought up by nearby businesses, the point of the loss-leader is spoilt. Fourthly, if the store, or the lorries, are full of bread, that means less truck/shelf-space for profitable or popular things, and ED customers would be the first to complain if they ran out of emu milk or chi-chi beans. Fifthly, the ultimate aim of the store is to keep retail customers, who also buy profitable things, happy. Allowing the actions of business customers, who are resistant to the up- and cross-selling messages, to make the co-op's retail customers less happy is not a recipe for long-term success. So, although they could order more of the bread, and thus satisfy the simplistic dictates of countless economics and MBA courses, to do so would be unwise. It would as if a farmer, faced with a plague of rabbits, decided to buy and farm more land to make up the losses, rather than invest in a shotgun.

pop9770 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > The Lounge is where we can discuss anything ? I think that's the point, yes. So, if I may, I'd like to gently point out that the whole thing about tax-breaks for landlords (or their removal), is somewhat overdone. The point of BTL is, as I gather, to get tenants to buy a property for the landlord over a given number of years. This is much the same as any other sort of leasing business, except that, as far as anyone can tell, the property will be worth much more at the end than at the beginning, which is never the same with businesses that hire out tools, plant, aircraft, cars etc. The other potential point of difference is that people or businesses that lease things usually don't want to own those things outright - because they don't need them for very long or very often, or they'd wear out and need replacing - whereas many people who rent homes would happily buy them, especially as it would cost them less than renting. You pointed out in a previous post that the removal of a tax-break amounts to an assault on modest landlords, and a blow for inequality, because they would no longer be able to compete with bigger landlords who have, you implied, better and cheaper access to credit, But it's exactly because you have (or had) better and cheaper access to credit and/or property than your prospective tenants that you were able to become a landlord at all. And this is why your complaints aren't getting much shrift. You are, on the one hand, saying that inequality is a bad thing and, on the other, saying equality shouldn't apply to you if it threatens the short-term interests of your business (ignoring, apparently, the rise in value of the property/ies). This does nicely illustrate the paradox of the rented sector, in which people who need homes can't buy them for themselves, but can buy them for businesses that don't have the cash for them either. There's something deeply wrong in that, but I guess it'll be a while before anyone works out how to fix it. In the meantime, welcome back to the 99%.

7th December, according to the 'new' version of the council's site. The current version of the site seems to have lost the relevant page, or perhaps its because 'mobile recycling' means two different things, which makes searching for either a pain in the backside. Happily for early adopters, the exhortation to remove plastic windows from envelopes seems to have been dropped from the new version of the site. But, reassuringly, Tetra-paks are still recyclable on both.

Dogkennelhillbilly Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > 20mph I think that's the problem. Years ago, the Department for Transport was persuaded by ACPO that 20mph zones should be self-policing, and as it cost them no effort or thought to make it so, so it was made. In consequence, until enough deaths and injuries pile up to justify further action, enforcement of speed limits will be optional, intermittent and probably voluntary. The irony is that a blanket 20mph limit was intended to allow - by reducing the number of arguable alternatives - enforcement by average-speed cameras, removing the need for anyone to hire expensive people to do actual work. But, despite the potential savings, it seems it was cheaper still just to do nothing at all. So Cllr Smith's news, assuming he isn't just teasing us, that there's a real possibility we might get not only a survey but also the grumpy-faced illuminations restored, is something really positive we can cling to as the nights draw in. Although, as he admits, there is some debate as to whether they will have any effect, they certainly make it look as if something's being done, and that's surely more than we have any right to expect.

LondonMix Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I agree that Helen Hayes has been great on this > issue. Eh? She's put a postcard* on the mat, and called for Southern's franchise to be taken away, but she's not explained how that would improve anything, or do anything but pleasure some lawyers. There is at present, nothing to suggest how or why shifting the contract would improve services at all, and without that, all her warm words are as so much populist flummery. The root cause of the Southern problems are twofold. The main one is that the previous franchise holder was allowed to stop training drivers two years before their contract ended, so there weren't enough when Southern took over. The second problem is that there's no clarity in the franchise about the status of guards (and station staff) and the jobs they should be doing, allowing Southern to try to skimp on staff costs and training, thus rightly upsetting the RMT, disabled people and safety regulators. Both problems have been caused, directly and indirectly, by a complacent, venal and talentless Department for Transport that has repeatedly done everything in its power to do as little as possible as badly as possible. What's needed, if this sorry saga isn't to be repeated indefinitely, is for someone to light a bonfire under DfT which, despite inquiry after inquiry fingering it for flaccid failure, cheerfully stumbles from disaster to disaster without anyone ever being held to account. This, of course, is exactly what Helen Hayes isn't calling for, and I am not sure why. If opposition MPs don't oppose government, including the sluggards of Whitehall, it's not clear what they're for. Sure, she's no longer a partner at Allies & Morrison, whose close working relationship with Network Rail caused so many harsh words in Brixton, so there's clearly no financial reason; but no reason isn't the same as good reason. *Slightly older readers may remember a Labour Group postcard calling for improvements at the Grove Junction. A junction for which pedestrian-friendly improvements had already been drawn up, authorised, costed and funded. Despite that head start, the Labour Group's initiative has had, to date, precisely no effect whatever.

jaywalker Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > That the internet of things is just a gimmick. It > isn't. Indeed it isn't. And nor is Donald Trump. But I would, respectfully, suggest that information about your devices, including your alarm systems or lack of them, might better be got from the vendors or from separate, dedicated forums where, perhaps, you haven't shared information about your economic status or where you live. There you will find answers to almost everything. Almost everything, that is, except the cat - if it won't wear a collar, you'll just have to buy it a phone. Raspberry Pi features heavily in those answers, I guess because the vendors have no interest at all in making things interoperable, and that seems to be what you're after. The Raspberry Pi is a bit of a learning curve, admittedly, but once you've got the hang of it you'll be hollering at your taps in no time. Finally, it might be worth examining why the vendors are investing so many millions in 'smart home' tech. A big reason seems to be 'frictionless' e-commerce. The first stage in that was turning computers from configurable multi-purpose communication machines into pocketable store-fronts, where you can do anything you want for only a few dollars a time. Now they want to do that to your home.

It's not just me, is it?

BrandNewGuy Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Our rail problems have several causes ? the > Thameslink upgrade and the associated rebuilding > of London Bridge being the main one that affects > congestion.However, this > is unrelated to Southern's uselessness, which > needs addressing urgently. Unrelated? Really? First, DfT are surely responsible for all of them. The delivery of rail services is very much their job. Secondly, and curiously specifically, there is a Managing Director of Passenger Services at the DfT's Rail Excecutive. This is Peter Wilkinson, resident of Vienna and 'businessman with interests in the rail industry' who draws at least ?250k p.a. from the public purse, presumably in return for some sort of responsibility for passenger services, even if he has only seemed to annoy the unions and splutter at train drivers' pay. The Managing Director of Passenger Services was not, however, always the Managing Director of Passenger Services. Before that he was the Rail Executive's shiny new Director of Franchising, brought in to smooth things over after the West Coast Mainline fiasco, and whose first major success was the creation of the three-in-one Southern franchise, with its fat fee payable independent of fare revenue or even, as we've seen, the presence of trains. So, perhaps not so unrelated after all. Especially when you consider that he not only served a near-four year stint at British Rail, butchering it for privatisation, but afterwards set up a rail consultancy with Govia as a client. It is, I know a small world. But sometimes it looks a little smaller than it should be.

This is not legal advice. But it's probably as good as any you'd get by asking on an internet forum after beer o'clock. I suspect you've just paid your school fees. In return for which you have learnt some useful things about the state of the nation's booming 'creative industries': 1) Everything is done through subsidiaries, often behind trading names. 2) Parent companies aren't liable for the obligations of insolvent subsidiaries. 3) This is why everything is done through subsidiaries. If a project doesn't work out, or they just don't fancy paying suppliers, they can fold at the drop of the hat and, short of finding out who the liquidators are and putting yourself on the list of creditors, there's nothing you can do. 4) You can help yourself by never doing anything without a proper Purchase Order, in advance, on the letterhead of a company that actually exists, is preferably registered in the UK, has directors that haven't too many insolvencies in the past and, if they work out of by-the-hour offices, have names the receptionist can remember. 5) Agree payment milestones alongside project milestones. 6) Send invoices promptly at every milestone. 7) Follow up with statements of account. Do not be afraid to harry the finance person/people. If there aren't any, walk away swiftly. 8) Hope everything turns out lovely. Legal action is possible. The new company can't prove the provenance of the work you did, and can't show that they bought it fairly, so you've got a case against them for breach of copyright. If you can prove that you did the work they're using (i.e. you have something plausible in writing commissioning you/thanking you for the specific work in question), and the new company hangs around for long enough, then mediation is the way to go, following up with court action if that doesn't work. Be aware, though, that the new company is as liable to collapse on itself as the last one (it might have capital listed, but that doesn't mean it can't squirrel it off to another subsidiary at the drop of a hat), so check the history of the directors. 'Restructuring' is often a bit of a euphemism for effectively stealing money from creditors, by way of murky networks of other companies, and if they run this sort of scam fairly often, then it's a fair bet they'll not be afraid to do it again. 'Investment companies', incidentally, aren't really there to responsibly nurture sustainable start-ups as the brochures claim, they're there to get what they can, usually by 'extracting value'. You've just discovered where they extract that value from, so don't expect them to pretend to be shocked, or even bothered, that one of their sheep has gone fleecing. It's sad that you've been stiffed by a bunch of talentless graspers but, as many of us are eventually forced to realise, they're talentless graspers who, through nepotism, magic or fraud, have got their hands on enough other people's money to kick off another round of their hip little scam. You, on the other hand, haven't. You have to work for your money, and that means, inevitably, working for talentless graspers who'll stiff you, at least from time to time. As another sole trader in the creative industries, I am truly sorry for your loss. But I'm also entirely unsurprised. It's happened to me, and to almost everyone I've worked with, one way or another. I sometimes think it would be nice if the world wasn't quite so full of shafty bastards, but then I remember that if it wasn't we'd have no advertising, no marketing, no branding and precious little finance, and what sort of world would that be? All the same, it would be nice if it was occasionally clouds and silver linings, rather than frying pans and fires.

Louisa Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I don't understand why banks can't house PO > counters, or perform the same functions at least. > Sub contracted out of course. Or how about the > Sainsburys local? Simply because (a) the PO and banks are in direct competition and (b) the PO contracts are so one-sided that only the 'self-employed' (mostly 50+ individuals with no likelihood of a job offer elsewhere) are desperate enough to take them up. The PO isn't really in the business of selling stamps. Most of its money comes from the commission it gets from flogging rebadged financial services, such as mortgages, credit cards and funeral plans, which is what the banks do already. And, these days, that can be best done online. Second, the new 'local' branches seem designed to fail. Sure, parasitising the overheads, staff and float of an existing business might look like a sensible 'efficiency' drive. But it's a lot more than that. For a start, the fixed element (usually less than ?1k per month) doesn't apply to 'local' branches, which have to survive on commissions (2% on stamps) and meagre handling fees. This is, clearly, unsustainable except in prime locations (where the PO's own Crown Offices, and Smiths, are taking the low-hanging fruit), which is why so many are giving up. In short, despite all the government money supposed to keep branches open, most sub-offices are getting more vulnerable. The peculiar hollowing-out of the 'offering' is at odds with government's 2012 committment to 'explore' mutualisation. But you can see why. Head Office won't see any benefit from mutualisation, but will see big benefits from turning 'Post Office' into an online reseller of financial services. And as mutualisation is dependent on the 'success' of the 'network transformation', and Head Office are in a unique position to affect the chances of that success, you'd have to be extraordinarily charitable to give them the benefit of the doubt.

Louisa Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Mr Louisa always > tucks in once it's landed on the table. So he gets > his first and starts eating, Although it's not clear from your prose, I'd hazard a guess as this being a household where Pa traditionally gets fed first, probably on a table covered in 'varnished cloth' (to borrow Mayhew's phrase), and the rest of the family eat a little later, when Pa is safely ensconced in the arm-chair, ready to regale them with improving tales or selections from books of sermons, as appropriate to the traditions of the home. In such sections of society, where people know their place without the need for 'etiquette', guests should no more expect domestic traditions to be overturned as they would expect to find a hired waiter dispensing champagne or a peripatetic cook turning a lamb on a jack. Although Mayhew, Pepys and the Grossmiths were not writing of our time, many of the customs they describe have survived to the present day and I would expect literate guests to be at least aware of the possibility that not all homes are run along the lines of restaurants, and refrain from complaining when they don't. However, as it would be a liberty to presume any such literacy, and the duty of the host is always to make their guests feel as comfortable as possible, whatever may arise, it would seem there is nothing to complain of. Some have expressed the opposite view, that it is the duty of guests to pander to the host and that failure to do so demands some form of retribution. That, however, is to misunderstand the point of hospitality. Offering the pleasures of one's table to others is not supposed to be a way of buying flattery or displaying superiority, but a generous way to express regard from one's guests. Though I can understand, especially in London, why more mercenary motives can prevail, the consensus of several centuries, and cultures, seems to be that they shouldn't.

lpool Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > The references to DfT Rail Executive are out of > date as it no longer exists - Rail is now simply a > department within DfT. ORR is a separate > organisation. Not sure I would describe the DG > being promoted to Permanent Secretary at DEFRA as > skipping off. What's changing on fares - I missed > that one. That was my point. The responsibility for rail has been split and shuffled about so much in recent years, that it's almost impossible to work out who should take a kicking. Which is probably why they did it. As for the fares, the news is that they'll be rising in the new year, at a rate above inflation. It's not, of course, news. This has happened every year for the last two decades, and passengers have been promised better stations, longer trains, more seats, modern rolling stock, greater reliability, a degree of punctuality and electrification as far as the briny sea (or, at least, Bristol) etc. What we've actually had is, at least in the view of some, subtly different.

Lowlander Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > The only way to solve this is to revamp the > franchising system on the railways. Sadly neither > Labour nor Conservatives seem willing to do that. > Ultimately we are beholden to the politicians. It's worse than that. We're beholden to the Department for Transport, the dead hand that mashed three franchises together and gave them to Govia with a promise to bung them a billion if anyone bought tickets or not. They have been smirking on the sidelines ever since, knowing that however much flak gets thrown at Govia, the RMT, Network Rail or the politicians, none of it will hit the DfT. The last time they presided over a massive franchising cods-up was with the West Coast Main Line fiasco. The chief culprit of that nonsense, rather than being censured, went off to spend a gentle few years heading up HMRC, retiring shortly before Parliament asked too many questions (the reply to which was, more or less, that knowledge of tax was beyond her pay grade). The current permanent secretary, the virtually-anonymous Philip Rutnam, who previously loomed over the largely invisible area of industrial policy at the Department for Business, has spent the last four years reorganising things so rail is now outsourced to a Rail Executive that nobody knows about because it swiftly disappeared into the miasmic Office for Rail and Road, where it's entirely separate from the Rail Franchising Directorate, while its mayfly Director General skipped off to the Department of Food. If this, to the untrained eye, looks like a bunkerisation exercise, that's probably for good reason. The officially-sanctioned solution to Southern's woes is to give Govia more time. Govia claims, impressively glibly, to have been training up the missing drivers, and will have more or less enough by sometime in this, or next, summer. Provided those drivers stay put, do whatever shifts are asked of them and comply with projections for sick leave, holidays, retirement, overtime and 'rest day' working, everything will be fine. If they don't, then maybe it'll be the summer after next. They'll need guards, too. But they've got enough for the moment, and if Govia gets its way over the RMT, they'll be able to train new ones at the drop of hat, as they won't need to do anything more safety-critical than breathe, and sometimes not even that. So, provided the Rail Accident Investigation Bureau's report into 'trap and drag' incidents can be quietly shelved, and the RMT placated, it's all set for a glorious autumn, sometime in the next three years. Admittedly, this cheerful prognosis rests precariously on the assumption that Network Rail, serially-frustrated optimists when it comes to planning anything, manage not to make anything worse and, with Christmas a little over six months away, history is not a very comforting guide. Happily, however, that won't be the DfT's fault, either. All of which, I hope, crystallises the reason why nothing, apart from fares, will be changing soon. Your suggestion of revamping the franchising system is too little too late. They've already done that, twice, and it just made things worse. And renationalisation, the damp sparkler of hope in the socialist mitten, can only lead to burnt fingers. It's easy to imagine that the trains couldn't get any worse, even if they were handed to a bunch of ignorant, talentless, incompetent bureaucrats. But reality, as everyone over the age of six well knows, is invariably more disappointing than imagination.