Sue

I have just received my first Christmas card, posted 18 November. Usually this arrives in November 🤣 Not the same one, obviously, but from the same people. With a lengthy handwritten letter 😮

The failure has been since the postal service was privatised. The money we pay is going towards profit for shareholders instead of towards improving the service.

What did Amazon say when you complained? Also, I don't understand how the tracking could show the drivers were on your street if they weren't?

But they would have to sweep them every day at this time of year! The council swept Ulverscroft Road leaves, put them in bags and collected them - but now, obviously, a load more leaves which have fallen since are lying on the pavement. I think it's somewhat unfair to say they "don't bother" sweeping them, unless you have evidence of that.

I think the 75p/£1.25 postage is a good reason not to send cards 🤣

Probably safest to book, particularly if you want a table in a particular part of the restaurant (or at all in the case of Maria's Tortilla, as some of the seating is at the bar).

The holding of buses to even out the service is to try to prevent buses being bunched up at certain sections of the route, eg due to traffic conditions, which means that there may be none at all on other sections of the route, where people would therefore have to wait a lot longer for a bus. And why do you say "Khan remains a huge liability to London in general"? I think he has been a great mayor. Or are you one of the people who has their heads buried firmly in the sand about issues such as climate change and pollution?

Last time I had an Amazon delivery delivered by Amazon, the tracking showed the vehicle in my street for ages, and eventually I went out to see where my parcel was. The guy had first of all had trouble parking, and then had to deliver parcels to a large number of different addresses in the street. He kindly gave me mine from the van, to save me hanging around. I suspect something similar happened with you, Alec1. In this case the vehicle was a plain white van, and if the driver was at the other end of the street with parcels, it wouldn't have been obvious that the van was delivering?

Franklins is excellent for both main meals and bar snacks. And I had a fantastic cocktail there last Saturday! We have tried just about everywhere else, but we always seem to end up in Franklins. https://www.franklinsrestaurant.com/ Kartuli is a nice place but I personally wasn't keen on the food, though the people I went with liked it. Not in Lordship Lane, but if you like Indian food the new place in East Dulwich Road next to the playground is very good. https://kokumlondon.com/menus

cookies - TURN OFF YOUR VENDOR PREFERENCES Eh?

🤣

Credit where it's due time: I waited in all day for a package which didn't arrive. It was an order from Amazon. Then I got a notification from Amazon (I think) that Royal Mail had "attempted delivery at 17.49" (can't remember the exact wording) and that I would have to collect it from "East Dulwich DO" (i.e. the delivery office which no longer exists). No delivery had been attempted at 17.49, at least not to my door. There was no way I was going to trek down to Peckham! I had no idea Amazon used other couriers, but their website has a list of them all, with their customer service numbers. I phoned Royal Mail customer service the next day, and I absolutely cannot fault the guy who dealt with this. He said they didn't usually have complaints with deliveries for Amazon. He was really polite, really concerned, he looked up the tracking number, said yes there was clearly a problem, no delivery had actually been attempted to my house at all, and there could be two possible reasons for that, which he explained. He told me he would phone Peckham delivery office and find out what had happened, and depending on the outcome, either the package would be delivered to me that day or he would email me to let me know what the issue was and how it was going to be addressed (no pun intended). That afternoon a rather disgruntled looking person who I think may have come out specially rang the bell and handed over the package (which had a 24 hour tracked label on it - this seems to mean nothing these days). So although it was annoying to have waited in for something which never arrived, I was mega impressed with the way my complaint was handled. I gave the guy five stars in Royal Mail's follow up survey. Pity he isn't managing the Peckham office!

Grab. I'm showing my age, but it always used to be a greedy sort of thing to do, grabbing. If not outright criminal, as in snatch and grab. Now it seems to be used for getting anything. Let's grab a sandwich. Up for grabs. I'll just come and grab that now. I hate it! And "It is what it is". Yes, obviously it is, otherwise it would be something else 🙄

Thank you for carrying on posting these useful links, IlonaM.

Would that make it hard for pushing buggies as well?

Maybe make that clear, because there is also a High Street in South Norwood?

West Norwood or South Norwood?

HeadNun, have you actually read what other people have posted on here? Could you perhaps respond to their points one by one, instead of making generalisations and assumptions? Eg what exactly do you mean by "the true motivations of those who march"? I posted above about why I marched, and I find your wording "true motivations" extremely offensive.

Nor me.

I also want to say that I was horrified to find a detailed description of a particular atrocity in a post on this forum. I go out of my way to avoid seeing or hearing anything like this, for the sake of my mental health, because it stays in my mind for a very long time and causes me great distress. I don't watch or listen to the news. I read it online where I can choose what to read without having something like this suddenly thrust at me before I have the chance to turn it off What exactly did you think you were gaining by posting that on here, HeadNun?

Unbelievably, I got a letter for a medical appointment which had been posted only three days previously 😮 I had told them not to bother sending a letter as it would not arrive for weeks! It has arrived before the date of my appointment at the end of the month! Amazing!

This was already discussed on the thread. As to the comment re "virtue signalling" on a previous post - I'm speechless. Virtue signalling to who? I went on the march because I feel strongly about the issue. I feel strongly about the people equating Hamas with innocent Palestinians who have nothing to do with Hamas. For me, that calls to mind the people who say that those who disagree with the government in Israel are anti Semitic. I don't know much about some aspects of all this. But I feel strongly about thousands of people, including thousands of children, being killed who have nothing to do with all this except that they have the misfortune to be currently living in Palestine. I went on the march to stand up and be counted. There isn't anything else I can do about this terrible situation except to do that. To be part of a gathering of thousands of people calling for a cease fire. To be part of a gathering of thousands of people showing their feelings and views to our (mostly) pathetic politicians. My daughter and her husband came to the march from Oxford. They were there because it was important to them to be there. They weren't "virtue signalling" either. And of course there are many other terrible situations in the world, individual and collective. I can't do something about all of them. Each of us can only do what we can when we are moved to, and a lot of people were moved to show their feelings about the present plight of the people living in Palestine and to try, however faint the hope of being heard, to do something about it.