Sue

Actually, The Castle has changed rather a lot! Have you been there lately? They no longer have the great juke box 😭 which is the only downside to the changes as far as I'm concerned. They have regular open mic sessions. The function room upstairs has been done up and is now really nice, with separate toilets up there as well. After the owners kicked lovely Jenny (the then manager) out, the pub became really unwelcoming for a while, unless you were a regular. A very regular regular. Happily that has all changed. It's still not gentrified, thank God, but the present management and staff are all really friendly, and it's a nice place to drink in. Still no food though. Sorry forgot to quote the post I was answering!

I have no idea. You would have to ask them!

Crikey. 1999? My memory really is crap! I thought Franklins had been on that corner for way longer than that!

Oh great. Now I appear to have practically lost my voice (some people may think this is a good thing). Can't be a different bug, as I haven't been out. Anyone else? What weird symptoms. I'm really fed up, yesterday I thought I was on the mend 😭

You got this. GRRRRR. Can't remember if I've posted that before, if so apologies.

I think the decline in lounge chats has happened since the new forum format. Stuff like "five letter word game thingy" (🙄) is almost always shown if you look to see what new posts are in the lounge, and whilst that's probably great fun if you are actually playing it, it doesn't really raise your hopes that there might be something of interest in the lounge. I think these things should be in some kind of separate section. I can see that might complicate things, but at least then people who weren't constantly playing the game might be able to see other threads more easily. Re angry people, it was ever thus. Some of the more unpleasant people of the past seem to have gone, from this forum at least. Some of them occasionally pop up elsewhere, unfortunately. As for social media in general, I find it very useful on the whole, to keep in touch with friends who live a long way away, and to find out about events etc I might otherwise not have known about. And just to keep abreast of what's going on in general. A lot easier than letters and the town crier and the grapevine. ETA: Just looked at the lounge threads and I think it's the starred threads which should be in a separate section, perhaps?

When was that? Don't remember that at all!

Thanks, it was Tart I had forgotten. I felt really sorry for them. I don't remember SE22 at all!

Emmaroyds 🤣🤣🤣 Her Instagram says she loves "soothing creams" 🤣 Sorry, I obviously have a childish sense of humour.

😥 Sorry, somehow my post above was duplicated instead of being merged with this one, and I can't delete all of the duplicated bits. Many moons ago, we used to have fairly regular "Forum Drinks", where forum members could meet up and get to know each other in real life. We met in a different local pub each time, and sometimes had sticky labels with our forum names on. A lot of those original people have moved away, but it has occasionally crossed my mind that it would be nice to start that up again and be able to put more faces to names (not that I ever remember either faces OR names) Or maybe it is still happening but I'm kept out of the loop 🤣 Many of those pubs we used to go to have now changed out of all recognition, of course. Also there seem to be more families with young children in the area, for whom evening drinks would be difficult. I don't have time to do it, but if anybody else was up for organising it I'd be happy to help. It mainly involves deciding on a date, I imagine trying to get a rough idea of how many people would be interested, and then booking a suitable sized space in a local pub and telling people about it on here I don't know how it was arranged before, but maybe some of the longer standing forum users may know. I just used to turn up!

2040? It's going to take 16 years???

It should have been Thistles, but it was actually Thistells or something, much to my irritation! When it was Le Chardon it was French food I think. If memory serves, the manager was French, and the food was good, but you sometimes had to wait a very long time for it. That must have been in the nineties? The thistle/chardon reference was because years and years ago it was a David Greigs, and their logo (probably not called a logo in those days) was a thistle. The room still had (can't remember if it still has, I've only been to Kartuli twice) the original old David Greig tiles on the wall, some with thistles on them. My memory is getting muddled. Before Kartuli, was it there where some poor people tried to open something and everything went wrong? I vaguely remember flooding, and/or a gas leak? And then Covid? Am I mixing it up with somewhere else along that stretch? I don't remember Franklins ever being SE22. When was that?

I did wonder if the original post was a joke, given the reference to discussing "interesting things" without giving any clue as to what his interests actually were .... Maybe he is just sitting back and quietly laughing at the responses 😥

Good luck. Did you go to the top at the council? Because often that will bring results that dealing with people lower down the chain doesn't.

I think this conversation is going round in circles. Let's see what we all feel when the changes are complete, eh?

The Ivy House comes out top in a Time Out list today!

Dear oh dear. They have a childlike trust in Royal Mail, don't they?

Does anybody have stats on the proportion of people local to this massive car park who actually use the pizza place, bowling alley and cinema? Or the proportion of people using the pizza place, bowling alley and cinema who live, say, within a mile of it? Thought not. It seems to me that the green spaces which are going to be incorporated will be much more beneficial all round. Southwark Park (the nearest park, I believe?) is nice, and well used by these mysterious "local" people. If there is going to be a larger supermarket than the one already there, then that's also benefitting the local people, isn't it? Presumably there will be a supermarket car park for those who can afford to buy and run a car and don't care about the cost to the environment?

Couldn't you say the same about, for example, "slum clearances" in the past? Also, what happened to the people who lived on the Elephant estates? Were they all cast out onto the streets? I know someone who has lived in a council flat in Surrey Quays for decades. To the best of my knowledge he has never been to either the bowling alley, the cinema or the pizza place. There are probably many people like him. I'm not sure why this discussion is in the local section? Surrey Quays is hardly within walking distance of East Dulwich, unless you have a lot of time and a lot of energy! And that particular part of it is not very easy to reach from here on public transport.

I think you probably mean meditation rather than mediation, though I may be wrong 🤣 Ah! An opportunity to promote our Singarounds! Second Sunday of the month at The Ivy House in Stuart Road, Nunhead, London's first community owned pub and a lovely friendly space with all ages. Check out the FAQ section of our website for lots more info (you don't have to sing, but if you do want to, anything goes - no restrictions at all, except no very very long songs) Https://www.thegooseisout.com Don't be put off by the fact that we are a "folk club" - our Singarounds are different every time, depending on who turns up, but there is usually a great mixture of genres, although often people do sing "folk" songs. It isn't an open mic - we don't use the stage, and we don't use mics. People mingle before it starts, at the breaks and at the end. You would soon get to know people. There are all ages, from very young (over 18 though after 8pm!) to very old (over 80!), though the mix on any particular night again depends on who turns up. The 484 bus goes from Goose Green to the end of Stuart Road, or it's a nice walk through Peckham Rye park, at least in the daylight hours!

Sounds like what Castleton posted above, but different to what I've got. Hope you all get better soon, it sounds horrible.

To be fair, as I understand it the development at the Elephant reserved a number of spaces for people who had small businesses or shops in the original space. I have only been there once, a while ago, to have a look round, but there is also if memory serves at least one place there which is a sort of community hub for local artists etc. The planting is well thought out, and on the whole I thought the area was a great improvement on what was there before. Things move on, otherwise many people would still be living in places with toilets in an outhouse and no heating. I think it's easy to look at the downsides of a development like this, but there are upsides as well.

Thanks both. I have heard of some people where a Covid test wasn't positive until several days after symptoms started. Also it did belatedly occur to me that some of the symptoms eg the dizziness were similar to the first time I got Covid, shortly after the first lockdown. But it's a bit pointless sticking a label on it, it's clearly some virus. Commiserations to everyone else who has it. Let's hope we all recover quickly!

😮 That's appalling! They are supposed to be solicitors 😮

🤣 Either it must have been an extraordinarily expensive sofa, or the payments are extraordinarily small 🤣