Sue

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/jan/30/water-bills-in-england-and-wales-to-rise-by-123-on-average-this-year?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

My water bill halved when I requested and got a water meter. There have been threads on the forum about this before, if you do a search. Households pay for gas and electricity according to what they use, so surely it is fair that water is the same? Single people and smaller households could say that it was unfair under the old system, because they were subsidising families and larger households who were using a lot more water than they were! If you didn't request a meter, and you think other people in the road haven't got one, haven't you asked Thames Water why they installed one at your house?

Well, this is very disappointing. Malabar Feast has changed its menu again. The delicious fish curry with sea bass no longer exists. There is now a fish dish with raw mango, which doesn't appeal. I had dal and spinach instead, which was bland (which I suppose I could/should have predicted). One of my visitors had a "vegetable Biriani" which contained hardly any vegetables. Along with it came two extremely tiny pieces of poppadom in a large paper bag. This was embarrassing, as I had been singing Malabar's praises and recommending we ordered from there. The other mains and the parathas were OK, but I doubt we will be ordering from there again. My granddaughters wisely opted for Yard Sale pizzas, which were fine. Has anybody else had a similar recent poor (or indeed good!) experience at Malabar Feast?

This is probably a stupid question, sorry. Could you contact all the surgeries whose catchment area you are in (and haven't already found wanting) and ask them directly if they have any GPs with the specific knowledge and experience relating to rheumatic issues which you need? Because I imagine there are not many people using this forum who can help, though I may be wrong.

I don't understand this, probably my fault. I thought the Crown offices were going to close completely and the services they provided were going to be moved to local shops with space for a sub post office. But if the Post Office is seeking franchisees for the Crown offices, that implies that the offices themselves would stay. But if they are not profitable for the Post Office, how could they become profitable for a franchisee?

Does anyone know if Tommy Rooney is away? I have a boiler emergency and he isn't responding to messages. I don't really want to use someone I don't know, and I know Tommy is excellent!

Thanks, all good ideas, but I need it for tomorrow! I can't believe there isn't already one online! I will keep looking! There may at least be something I can copy into Word and print out. ETA: Just found this, should anybody else be interested: https://dutchgirlinlondon.com/2016/01/20/street-art-dulwich-outdoor-gallery/ However it's very old so quite a lot has changed since then, I imagine.

I have been trying to find a map of this that I can print out. The Go Jauntly app has a walk, but I'd rather have a printed map. I'm sure there must be one, but I can't find it. Does anyone have a link?

Just three weeks to go, people! Still tickets available!

You can Google to find out how often you will be invited for breast screening. It depends on your age. Here you go: https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/breast-screening-mammogram/when-youll-be-invited-and-who-should-go/ If you are over 71 you won't be automatically invited, but you can request a screening. It's all explained in the link above.

Could you make that a link? I don't want to Google it or type the www in case I then get inundated with - well, not sure exactly what, but I suspect I wouldn't want to be inundated with it 🤣

That's really annoying! They have deleted their posts. One person quoted one of them, but what was in the other one? Could somebody tell me what they said? Whatever it was, it seems they thought better of making it public! That was only when Cynthia was running her brothel there 🤣 But what would they be vetting them for? My mind is boggling 🤣 My mind is boggling again re celebrating Mother's Day 😀

For some reason I have thought for years that it was just a very expensive restaurant!

Does anyone know of anywhere local where I can hire a large shredder? The new Library of Things in the Leisure Centre doesn't presently have one, apparently because they are in the process of getting new improved ones. I would have preferred to use them, but I need to dispose of a very large amount of stuff, and I don't want to wait indefinitely. There's too much of it to dispose of by other methods, like soaking in the bath, and anyway I want to recycle it once it's shredded.

It was a specific technical comment re the wording of the questionnaire and its likely effect on the results. It was of no concern to anybody else. I posted saying that I had PMed because people don't necessarily see that someone has sent a PM. I thought it was important to feed it back given that the questionnaire was part of someone's major project. But I'm not sure why you seem to have taken this so personally! It has absolutely nothing to do with you!

Who owns/runs this place? They certainly seem to be holding some very strange events there. I thought it was still 1 April for a minute 😮

I was talking about the forum as a whole. Sorry, I didn't realise that you meant just this part of it!

Norberts? Is this something to do with Wallace and Gromit? 🤣

Ooops sorry, just realised Scott's expedition was a different one from Shackleton's, but nevertheless the following might still be of interest! Jake Wilson, a singer and guitarist who used to live locally (in Bellenden Road), wrote a series of songs about Scott's expedition, and produced a CD called "All's Well". He moved out of London a while back. I'm no longer in touch with him, but I googled and found the attached. I have a copy of the CD somewhere. This was in 2012, and Jake's website apparently no longer exists, so I guess he's doing other things these days.

I feel totally knocked off balance by all this stuff. What it must be like to be living in America, I can't begin to imagine.

I thought Musk was (in theory anyway) only supposed to be there for a limited time, for a specific purpose (DOGE) which is now completed?

Does anybody have a small trolley with wheels and shelves that they no longer want? It doesn't have to be in great condition as long as it's usable and reasonably sturdy, as it's for art materials. Thanks!

Does anyone know where the fireworks were actually coming from? If from someone's garden, that's even worse. Pity the poor immediate neighbours 😭

That's true. They often weren't emptied. But that is surely down to the council making sure they are regularly emptied, rather than an argument against bins per se. If they can spare the staff to go and remove one off piles of dog s**t from the pavement every time they are reported, it is surely not beyond their capacity to empty the bins. I don't have a dog, but I didn't know the green bags could be put in "any litter bin or green house bin"? If that's the case, what's the point of having dedicated dog poo bins at all? Why not just publicise this more widely and/or increase the number of general litter bins?

Yes. I can't imagine that there are many Musk supporters locally, but who knows.