Peckhamgatecrasher

My dippy daughter lost her keys yesterday. She was at Peckham Rye Common and Park at lunchtime/early afternoon then on bus to Oval. SOME kind person handed them into the cafe - thank you.

If the horse can be bred from, a broken leg is not necessarily a problem. If, however, it is a gelding, the brutal truth is that it's cheaper to destroy the horse than spend a lot of money on a horse that will not do anything more until the day it dies naturally. Not sure about the morality of that decision. Perhaps a tax on each bet could be siphoned off to care for such horses but racing is a business and most business men are not that sentimental.

It is the depressing side of racing. This organisation gruesomely named Race Horse Death Watch, keeps a tally of all fatalities. Death Watch

No! (sorry - that was irresistible)

Is there life in Peckham?

Lydon issued a statement saying that, "For me Malc was always entertaining, and I hope you remember that. Above all else he was an entertainer and I will miss him, and so should you."

Too long to quote, but this is brilliant: Paradise by the dashboard light

Oh, I watched that too. Such sublime dialogue: "You're a big man, but you're in bad shape. With me it's a full-time job. Now behave yourself."

cmck83, it might be a good idea to get hold of a copy of The Highway Code and familiarise yourself with it. This is mandatory for car drivers, not so cyclists but should prove useful. WHSmiths stock them.

Oh well done. It's that or something very similar. Quite repulsive and creepy plants.

C'est la vie, civilservant: Who trusted God was love indeed And love Creation's final law Tho' Nature, red in tooth and claw With ravine, shriek'd against his creed

Minkey, it's the 'modern' bench in light wood. Don't think they're ferns or narcissi.

Just finished reading a book by Mark Baker about US veterans in Vietnam. Quite ghastly in some places and obviously a few pyschopaths in the army. But this extract shows how ordinary men can descend into animals. Finally, dawn came. The battle broke off. There were literally hundreds and hundreds of Vietnamese fleeing the area, any way they could. Panic. ... I don't know if they ran out of ammunition or what, but we were taking very little fire at that point and we were just killing everybody. It turned into a turkey shoot. They were defenceless. There were three or four light fire teams working the area. Hundreds of people were being mowed down. ... I was in there with the best of them. Blowing people off the boats, out of the paddies, down from the trees. Blood lust. I can't think of a better way to describe it. Caught up in the moment. ... It was a slaughter. No better than lining people up on the edge of a ditch and shooting them in the back of the head. I was doing it enthusiastically. You begin at that point to understand how genocide takes pace. I consider myself a decent man, but I did mow those people down from my helicopter. A lot of people we were killing in the morning were the same people who were trying to kill us the night before. I tried to compensate in my head that most of the people we were wasting were the enemy. But I could appreciate in a black way that you can take anybody given the right circumstances and turn him into a wholesale killer. That's what I was. I did it. Bizarre. That's what it was. It was very bizarre.

P.Rose, it's going to get noisy when mum and babies separate - they scream a lot.

Sue I don't. They like a lot of snakes standing on end (that's from a distance and with my eyesight). Between 2 and 10 inches, thick stem like asparagus and ending in a closed-tulip-shaped head with lots of white bobbles on them. [i hope I never have to do an identity parade.]

If you get time this week, go and have a look at the magnolia tree in the Japanese Garden in Peckham Rye. It is absolutely stunning at the moment. Does anyone know what the strange looking flowers/weeds are in Brenchley Gardens - near the bench overlooking the golf course? Nearest thing I can think of is a red hot poker except they are not red! Lots of speedwell about too which must be one of the prettiest weeds.

That's mean brum - I have no eggs in the house and I want a fried egg sarnie now.

I fancy Eric's Charm, but I always think e/w is a bit pussy. I'll put a fiver on to win and split it with you David if miracles happen (now I know where my local bookies is!)

I saw a lovely butterfly today too - think it was a Painted Lady. Finally found violets in profusion today in Old Camberwell Cemetery. When we were children, the Sunday School would go out the day before Mothering Sunday to the woods and pick wild flowers to make posies. I remembered collecting primroses, cowslips, buttercups, daisies, anemones and violets. Since I hadn't seen any violets I thought I must have imagined it. Our poor mothers - the posies must have been a wilted mess by the time they received them.

I think Brum just wants to be a heroine in a Victorian melodrama. Narnia will bring smelling salts, the fever will break and Huguenot will visit wearing a fetching mob cap and carrying a bowl of calfsfoot jelly. Next time, Brum, don't lace your stays so tightly.

Good to lower temperature - you don't want your brain to frazzle.

Have to second the Archduke Winebar - always had a great time there.

Nope. Though I was about to be v. sarcastic so probably just as well!

Well that's bloody weird.

Just testing - my posts won't appear in the 'for sale' section.