Sue

To be fair, and I know that's hard to be where Thames Water are involved, there are a lot of very old (? Victorian?) sewers etc which constantly leak and need replacing. OTOH, how much of our money is being used for that, and how much is going to shareholders? (I'm assuming TW is privatised, as virtually every effing public service has been, with predictable results 😡)

😮

First time poster, just joined the forum..... But otoh it doesn't read like a wind-up ..... until the second post ...

I just started doing the questionnaire, but I can't work out how to select my ethnicity. I'm White. Are you assuming that English, Scottish etc people are White? Because unless I've missed it, there is no category for or mention of White except "any other White background". But somebody born in England etc could be of Indian origin, for example, but still be English or Scottish, so what would they put? Can you select more than one category? It doesn't feel right to me, sorry. Where did you get the categories from? Had you considered using the ones used in the census, for example? I didn't feel I could continue with it 😥

Even when the effects are unpleasant to other people? Did you disagree with the smoking ban, then?

I can't help, I just wanted to say well done you, and good luck!

Don't think they are red kites. Red kites have very distinctive forked tails ( unless yours do and it doesn't show clearly on the photo?) You see a lot of them on the M40. I saw a large bird fly over my road yesterday which I couldn't identify, maybe it was one of these. What road are you in? I'm near North Cross Road.

Ah yes, Grace and Favour. I must be misremembering it as having been bigger than it was. Everybody seems to have either moved to Hastings or be about to 😂 I don't remember Duck Egg at all!

After the butcher, wasn't there a sort of gift shop cum coffee shop? The coffee part being a sort of alternative to the Blue Mountain opposite, and part of the beginning of gentrification? I can't remember its name now, but it was owned/run by someone called ?Rose? , who then became a publican and changed the Magdala to the Magnolia (now the Lordship - via the Patch) with her then partner. And then moved away from the area. Or has senility struck again and I am thinking of another North Cross Road shop completely?! I'm pretty sure it must have been yours, Dan, because of the size.

Not sure how relevant this is, but it might be to some prospective house sharers. You don't say if you are male or female?

ID mobile service was recently out for some time,which was very inconvenient. They piggyback on 3.

Perhaps they have new staff and/or a new chef (given your comments about the other food you got). Not that that is any excuse, obviously.

That's a shame. I haven't used them for a long time as I haven't had a delivery for a long time, but I always found their food and service reliably good.

I have found that some tradespeople ask you to post a review on here after they have completed a job. This puts you in a difficult position if you thought they were ok but not outstanding, but I imagine is the reason why some people have so many reviews, because their customers feel obliged to post something. Also, if someone does a really crap job, it would probably have to be extraordinarily bad before anyone would post about it on here, for the reasons Moovart gives. So the reviews are very useful (thanks admin) but there are downsides. But then even if you have a personal recommendation from someone, that doesn't necessarily mean that that tradesperson will do an equally good job for you. It's all a minefield 😂

Those projects were both great ideas which had they been assessed as feasible would have been wonderful assets for the whole community. I think it was reasonable for the council to contribute towards feasibility studies. The amounts contributed were not enormous in the great scheme of things. I'm sure people wouldn't be grumbling about them now if the projects had gone ahead.

Does anybody have this in SE22? I just checked my postcode, and it says "We don't offer service at the address you checked and we have no plans to build here" 😮 Why?!

I thought there already was?

They aren't "helping me with my everyday banking needs " In order to show the bank some ID documents, they told me I had to make an appointment. In LEWISHAM 😡

Does this not mean there could be a leak between your house and the meter? Have you phoned Thames Water to ask what the possible causes are and if they will be coming to investigate? I had a leak in my house which I had no idea was there, btw. I found out about it on Christmas Day when water came through my kitchen ceiling. A concealed cistern had been slowly leaking water through a small crack in a connection, probably for months, onto my bathroom floor behind a panel, where it could not be seen.

Sorry I don't understand? You do what? The government has greatly cut council funding. Therefore in order to try to continue local public services, councils have to get their money from somewhere, either by increasing council tax or by initiatives like this one. Also, the Tories cut income tax rates decades ago in order to get elected, and no party is now going to put them back up again, with the effects on such things as the NHS and schools which we can see all around us. The whole infrastructure of this country is falling apart.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/feb/28/cash-strapped-london-council-starts-crowdfunding-drive-to-pay-for-green-upgrades

Who was it, then? Don't keep us all in suspense 😂