Sue

No. What happened? I actually thought, considering it was what we used to call Guy Fawkes Day last night, the loud noises from fireworks ended remarkably early. About 9pm? Maybe I just fell asleep and didn't hear any later ones. Do people actually burn Guys any more? Apart from at places like Lewes, where I believe they still have Bonfire Societies and burn effigies of various political figures etc.

The accompaniment to our "Christmas Pudding" aka Nothing-Whatever-Like-A- Christmas-Pudding last year at The Cherry Tree was "brandy butter ice-cream." If it had ever been near any brandy, the brandy must have been waved in its direction from a very great distance. Same with butter. The ice cream tasted like bog standard "vanilla" from a catering tub. At least it did bear some resemblance to ice cream. Whereas the "Christmas Pudding" bore no resemblance whatever to any Christmas Pudding I have ever seen or tasted in my many decades of seeing and tasting Christmas Puddings. Oh, and Cinzano Bianco. Bleurgh. My sister used to drink that. 🤢

Absolutely gutted to hear that Dell Autos in Hansler Road is closing tomorrow. They have MOTed my ancient 1998 Micra for years, and have always been brilliant. Wishing them all the best of luck in their retirement. Wishing all their customers (including me) luck in finding another garage as honest, helpful, efficient and friendly as they were.

Crikey. I need a lie down in a darkened room after reading that. And I've only just got up 🤣 Well said, though (apart from the annoying use of "woke").

I completely misread the previous post, sorry. For some reason I thought the mini cooper was also a police vehicle, DUH.

Not even in whisky macs?!

That's very rude. Care to expand, rather than having a go at malumbu? You think this solicitor with five one star reviews (and most people with complaints won't bother writing reviews) is perfectly proficient, and all the delays, non use of email communications etc are his clients' fault?

Thank you for your explanation, which makes complete sense. Sadly I'm guessing that most of those who post on here, including me, are not familiar with the holiday arrangements of the construction industry. Very sorry to have ventured an uninformed opinion 😀

How come you are always there when these things happen?! 🤣 More seriously, someone posted on here the other day that they are practices. Who knows?

That is also a Young's pub, like The Cherry Tree. However fantastic the menu looks, you might want to ask exactly who will cook the food on the day, and how. Also, if there is Christmas pudding on the menu, you might want to ask how that will be cooked, and whether it will look and/or taste anything like the Christmas puddings you have had in the past.

Nothing to do with the topic of this thread, but I have to say, I think it is quite untrue that people don't make human contact in cities. Just locally, there are street parties, road WhatsApp groups, one street I know near here hires a coach and everyone in the street goes to the seaside every year! There are lots of neighbourhood groups on Facebook, where people look out for each other and help each other. In my experience people chat to strangers on public transport, in shops, waiting in queues etc. To the best of my knowledge the forum does not need donations to keep it going. It contains paid ads, which hopefully helps Joe, the very excellent admin, to keep it up and running. And as for a house being broken into, that could happen anywhere. I knew a village in Devon where a whole row of houses was burgled one night in the eighties. Sorry to continue the off topic conversation when the poor OP was just trying to find out who was open for lunch on Christmas Day!

We went to Chern Thai for lunch on Saturday, as we have done quite often, and they were closed, with no sign of life. The sign in the window still says Saturday 12-3, and there was no indication that they would be closed. Can anybody shed any light? We went to Chilli and Garlic on Zenoria Street instead. Their falafel salad bowl is amazing (and amazing value!) but we had been looking forward to a Pad Thai and a pint of Singha! ETA: I am reviving this thread because it is/was specifically about Chern Thai's opening times!

Not very quiet 🤣

How on earth can someone like this be allowed to continue as a solicitor? Can't he just be struck off, or the equivalent?

Yes, why couldn't they have started the work in July, after exams finished? Then it would have been open again to give children at least some revision time there before exams.

Very sorry to hear this, but surely the landlord is responsible for fixing the electrics? Surely they must be insured for things like this? I hope you get it all sorted out quickly.

Great gig, great sets from Erin and Phil too. Thanks to the enthusiastic audience! Our November concert with Andy Irvine is sold out, but WeGotTickets is running a waiting list.

£30-40 for M&S Christmas food for two seems very low! And only £60 for food and drink for 8-10 people? We have had M&S food at Christmas in the past, and it came to a lot more than that. I suppose it depends exactly what you are buying. We left it late to book a Christmas Day meal out last year, so there weren't many options left. The Cherry Tree menu looked very nice. That was our first mistake. We also overlooked the fact that it was a Young's pub, with all that implies about the food. That was our second mistake. We don't have shedloads of money. We took the view that we deserved a nice meal out after working bloody hard all year. So it was doubly disappointing to basically waste a lot of money which could have been very much better spent elsewhere.

Welcome back. What have voting intentions got to do with this thread? And much as you may hate the present incarnation of so-called Labour, as do I, I don't think it is true that they have "not done a single positive thing for working class people", is it? And how exactly are you defining "working class people", anyway?

It is just a witch hunt. The estate agent has taken responsibility. FFS leave the poor woman alone. ETA: And please stop calling her Rachel. You don't call Starmer Keir.

I stand by what I said. There are rules, and Southwark is perfectly entitled to enforce those rules, regardless of what anybody else does. If it "makes money" from the fines, that might be a useful by product for it, but that is completely irrelevant. If people break a rule, they can't complain if they then suffer the consequences. If there were extenuating circumstances (like going into a bus lane to avoid hitting a pedestrian who suddenly ran across the road) then that's different, but that must be extremely rare.

Thanks, I just generally prefer to read things than watch videos, but it's not important enough to ask the cathedral.

Does it still contain a working phone? If not, no reason to be there. If so, does anybody ever use it? If not, no reason to be there. But some people (eg homeless people) may not have a mobile and might need access to a phone in an emergency if there was nobody else around? I can't think of any other reason. Maybe Oru can shed some light? Or BT, if that still exists?

Is there a transcript of this?