DJKillaQueen

A lot of Halal meat is stunned first though in the UK (because it shortens the process of slaughter), which makes sense when you have hundreds of animals each day......I can't remember where I found that out (will try to though)....

I think it's heartbreaking the things some people do animals. What can we do to stop some animal owners doing what that owner did to that poor dog. And they are just the ones that get caught.

Yes, I think everyone will be happy to hear that....:)

Being vegetarian seems to be a sore point on this forum No it isn't..... as the meat eaters like to come out in force & make themselves feel better by trying to justify it. Because some vegetarians can't help but cast all meat eaters as being somehow inhuman. I love animals. And I eat some types of ethically reared meat/ fish too.

I'd love to go to Vietnam Sean (I'm guessing you've been).......

Yeah I wish my knee would get better soon too but for now VBC and me can share my crutches and have a geriatrics day out.....fancy a coach trip to Margate VBC? :))

For me it's Peckham Rye Park, which isn't strictly East Dulwich, but there's nothing in East Dulwich I like better than that.

Yes and no, because those signs have always been there as part of the one way traffic directions. A cycle contraflow ignores those. There are cycle route markings painted on the road indicating the contraflow already. The signs on posts would inform drivers there is a contraflow in operation for cyclists as much as confirming that for cyclists themselves. Hence the confusion. But we'll know soon enough what the problem is.

Or just avoid Vietnam altogether!

I asked about this at the CC Transport Sub-Committee meeting tonight. It seems the signs haven't gone up because there's some problem with the contraflow but no-one knew exactly what. I do now have the contact details for who would know and have emailed him and shall post the reply when I get it. But that seems to confirm that the contraflow is not in official use yet. I did point out that cyclists do not and can't know that and depending on the problem it might be useful to sort it out quickly.

This junction was discussed tonight again at the CC Transport Sub-Committee meeting. No works will happen to this junction until next year, because funding won't be available until then and the level of funding will determine what can and can not be done. I asked about light phasing. That is the remit of TFL. To alter it, the council need to go through a lengthy process with TFL involving surveys and data. It's not something they can do at will. This would also apply to moves to introduce filter lights (for turning right for example). Also the reason for the short phasing is to accomodate pedestrians crossing equally with traffic. Basically the junction is overloaded so there has to be compromise to keep traffic movement and pedestrians crossing balanced. To lengthen the phases for traffic for example would leave pedestrians waiting too long to cross. Conversely the idea to use diagonal pedestrian crossings would leave traffic waiting too long between pedestrian phases. From the data, most of the collisions at that junction involve car on car. There is also agreement that drivers breaking rules, for example jumping red lights and turning right where they shouldn't contributes to that. This is something the council can do something about relatively quickly. There is going to be something done to enforce the rules at the junction. How that will happen (CCTV with fines or some kind of monitoring on the ground) hasn't been discussed yet.

Nope, can't say I've ever eaten a fat rascal before ;-)

She was refused entry to the USA in 1913 for "moral turpitude". Can't imagine Marie Lloyd and Sarah Palin in the same tea room together.......Palin would eat her cream scone whereas Lloyd would do something shocking with hers! I now see the resemblance to you Dita.......but have to say you still make the best scones I ever tasted.....

For information, here are the relevant minutes of discussion on this from the Nunhead and Peckham Rye Community Council Traffic and Transport Sub-Group Meeting, Thursday 2nd September 2010. 6. Update on the Peckham Rye South Scheme. (Simon Phillips (SP) Principal Transport Planner). SP updated the meeting, stating that a feasibility study looking at the both arms of Peckham Rye on either side of the common has just been completed. In particular, a traffic model has been developed to evaluate possible changes to the junctions with East Dulwich Road. There are a large number of collisions at the 'Kings on the Rye' junction which is also very congested. Possible changes are mainly tweaks to signal timings. It may be possible to implement a diagonal pedestrian crossing at the junction, but this would involve a trade off that might increase wait times at existing crossing points. Many other schemes within the area had also recently been completed; e.g.: ? Contra flow cycling at northern end of Rye Lane ? Heaton road regeneration scheme ? Nigel Road safety scheme. SP distributed a map of collisions highlighting that the eastern branch of this junction is a pedal cycle route going to Lewisham and that at peak times around 25% of vehicles on that route are bicycles. SP highlighted that collisions are mainly due to congestion and poor road user behaviour. Maybe an enforcement and or education programme is necessary. Residents said that part of the problem was that there was no filter going from East Dulwich turning right onto Peckham Rye and cars coming from Nunhead go through amber causing a cumulative effect. Other residents suggested more stop lines and changing of light phasing and other filters from East Dulwich to Peckham Rye to which SP responded that it might lead to further congestion and has to be passed by TfL, a process which has now become harder than before due to the Mayor?s policy to 'smooth the traffic flow'. SP also suggested that a diagonal crossing will improve pedestrian amenity, but not necessarily reduce accidents. SP ended saying that the scheme was a 2 yr. project; Provisional phasing is to start this year with a 'gateway' treatment where the road splits. This would involve changes to lane widths etc. made to slow cars down and to improve cycling conditions at the entrance to Peckham Rye (east). Proposals for this year should be confirmed by mid October. Suggestions: The Chair suggested the possibility of looking at other examples in London to get ideas. Action: To discuss the proposals for this junction at the next meeting. SP is Simon Phillips - Principal Transport Planner

Oh Dita specialises in Victoriana....you should see her boudoir!

Yeah, kind of puts a new take on 'Looking for John Malkovich' doesn't it......:)

Sigh...you are not being sacked you are being asked to sign new contracts....an entirely different thing altogether. And just as any employee in ANY sector chooses to sign or leave the job the same is for you. We can disagree on the reasons why the new contract is or isn't suitable or good but the fact remains that terminating contracts and issuing new ones is a normal part of UK employment practise for the vast majority of employees, and fire fighters need to understand that. Also MOST of the public sector workers I know (and I know lots) chose the public sector because of the job security, employment rights and strong unions and generous pension schemes. So it's absolutely not true to say that people choose public sector jobs out of some altuistic sense of duty to the public. All the ffs I know all joined the fire service because they thought it would be an exciting job to do. Many of them are ex military and thought their skills would be relevant. None of them joined out of an over riding sense of public duty. So that's another myth that in my view, and it is just my view, that's being conveniently peddled to try and give credibility to the FFU stance in this dispute.

I was talking with a poverty action group this morning as well and there may be scope for a legal challenge on the 10% levy, because the base rate of benefit for a single unemployed person is set by law as the MINIMUM amount needed for that person to live on. That amount is set with regard to the fact that the unemployed person has rent and council tax paid by other benefits. To apply something that devalues that base rate means technically the base rate should rise or be reviewed (which would lead to a rise). The government know they can't cut that base rate without going through a review (which in all likelyhood would say it is too low) so are trying to effectively cut that base rate by changing the rules on associated benefits. Housing however is seen as an 'essential' living cost and therefore would be a factor in what that minimium base rate should be. I think we can expect a legal challenge on this one, and a challenge that will cost the government coffers far more if sucessful than anything they thought they would save from the 10% levy.

LOL.......not after the bakewell tart anyway!

Firefighters risk their lives. In that respect, theirs is not a "normal" job. Soldiers, Police Officers, Construction workers all have far higher fatality rates than ffs. I would even argue that, given the fatality rate is very low, that ffs do not risk their lives daily as most of the incidents they attend have absolutely no significant risk to themselves whatsoever (because of the training they have and the equipment they use). As I said before, a ff has more chance of being injured in a car accident than they do on the job. Having said all that of course, doesn't take away that there is risk incvolved in serious incidents (but thankfully they are few), and they ARE trained specifically to deal with that risk. After all, many construstion workers die every year (as much as 60 some years) and they too know they are doing a risky job in which workers die, but we don't give them 'hero' status, and bleat on about it.

Not the 'living' platter thing again Dita? >:D

So if I think I'm Cheryl Cole for long enough I'll become her?

Yes but what are the coalition going to do about the unaffordability of rents and property? They can not keep going up at the rate thay have done for the past 30 years. Raising the lowest rents closer to that of the unaffordable private sector for the poorest is NOT the answer. It WILL (along with some of the more unfair changes to HB) make London a ghetto for the more well off. You should be ashamed of proposals to cut HB by 10% for the LTU......in some cases forcing them to live on as little as ?47 a week as a result, and most of them in areas where there just aren't jobs there for them to take. Which brings me onto my next point. One of the reasons for that decade on decade influx into London is that young people move from other parts of the country (as indeed did I twenty years ago) to find work. My home town Liverpool is not unlike any other northern town where population has declined for decades, with the demise of jobs and industry. Again, where is the great government scheme to reverse that trend and regenerate all parts of the country, something Labour equally failed at too, after the hatchet job of the Thatcherite government before it. All of these issues are related. To deal with one whilst ingnoring another is poor government. It is ridiculous that we have one half of the country stagnant (a half incidently with good transport links and connections to Europe and America) whilst the other half becomes more and more crammed with people chasing the jobs that do exist, not helped by the idiotic comments of people like IDS saying people should move to find work. People already DO move to find work but in an economy where the unemployed have consistently outnumbered vacancies by at least 5-1 for years you'll all have to do far better than that if you think any of those proposals are going to change anything for the better. These measures are going to hit real people hard, people who already have miserable and hopeless lives.....think really hard about that.

The ladies footy clique (I think) >:D

Clique's? No such thing on this forum surely.....!