civilservant

hear hear DJKQ!

Great pic, which is somehow more satisfying to look at than the Google maps views. ED itself looks densely built-up, a sort of human ant-heap, not very green at all. The green bits seem to belong to Peckham (the Rye) or to DV.

The British hedgehog population is in serious trouble - they are now officially an endangered species with some forecasts suggesting that they'll be extinct in this country by 2025 http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2006/jan/17/g2.ruralaffairs. The Hedgehog Hibernation Survey has just been launched to try to understand the decline, which gives me an excuse to post some appealing hog pics from the BBC to mark the event - http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/21249195 What ED lacks is hedgehogs, so it's likely that none of us in ED is going to be able to contribute to the survey. However, here's a link to things we CAN do to help http://www.hedgehogstreet.org/pages/hedgehog-campaign.html and a link to the British Hedgehog Preservation Society Facebook page here - http://www.facebook.com/pages/British-Hedgehog-Preservation-Society/273196350835 (thanks, Sue!)

Yes, with a baby bulge

Southwark is a smoke-free zone and the council website says Domestic smoke - The recent trend for open fireplaces has raised the issue of domestic smoke. Southwark is a Smoke Control Area. This means that coal, wood and oil cannot be burned in Southwark unless a) they can be burned without producing smoke i.e. using smokeless fuels, or b) you have an 'exempted fireplace'. You can download a list of approved smokeless fuels and exempted fireplaces. http://www.southwark.gov.uk/downloads/download/1992/approved_smokeless_fuels_and_exempted_fireplaces I suspect this means that outdoor pizza-baking or squirrel-cooking will be frowned upon unless you do it smokeless-ly... Sorry, Nette!

LM are you involved in the Lewisham proposals? You sound very knowledgeable about them

> a particularly and uniquely offensive word. he does it on purpose for sure - it's literally the last word in the screenplay!

I had a quick look at the report (the final version has now been published) and was very surprised to find after all the hoohah in the press that it does NOT recommend that the hospital be closed. From a quick glance, it's not easy to see exactly what the recommendations are, and I haven't had time to read the report carefully. But overall it paints a picture of a poorly performing trust with serious management and clinical deficiencies delivering very poor value for money. I was also struck by the report's characterisation of primary care in SE London as being consistently below the rest of the country both in terms of access and patient experience - whether this was just about Lewisham wasn't clear.

We had the fridge and the washing machine in the sitting room and washed up in the bath for 4 months - that was grim! The cooking was done in a microwave or on an induction hob that sat on top of the washing machine as I didn't want to risk a naked flame or a hot electric element in our very tight living space. You can pay quite a bit for one but we went for this cheap-ish hob http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B004BM749S/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_1/278-4129225-4678057?pf_rd_m=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe&pf_rd_r=0VY4SNZQJ6CTBWCRV6VA&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_p=103612307&pf_rd_i=B001TIPRN2 after reading the on-line reviews and were quite pleased with it

I am horrified ...that '50 Shades' is being described as literature. Check out Paloma Faith's hilarious trashing of it on Room 101 http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01q9rxn/Room_101_Series_2_Episode_4/

finally saw Django and thought it was a marvellous return to form - almost as good as Pulp Fiction or Jackie Brown (was the best bit of the latter really BrFo in a bikini? a bit sad, that assessment) Rosie I do hope you kept your eyes open when QT came on with that ludicrous Oz accent or you'd have missed a brilliant bit of the film. Most of the characters he plays himself get offed in inventively nasty ways.

I really rate Jackie Brown (but maybe B Womack, Elmore Leonard et al should get some of the credit for that) and Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs are impressive, but I turned off Kill Bill and the Grindhouse stuff, the cartoon violence is really tedious From Dusk till Dawn remains a hoot every time I watch it, so a bit perplexed as to why it's rarely acknowledged by George Clooney fans!

do you think that you will have time, patience and energy enough to give each child the individual attention that each needs? these are all just as essential as money and living space. having a sibling can be a good thing, but sometimes not, esp if there's not enough parental attention to go around. There are very good reasons why 'middle-child syndrome' has been identified as a problem, and it can exist even if there are only 2 in the family.

JulieP, I wasn't criticising you - I am happy that you've managed things so that rats can't get into your house any more. You are completely right that nobody would want to be bitten by a rat, but if they're living somewhere else, then no reason to bother them. I fear that there are people who would kill every rat or grey squirrel in the country, simply because they don't like them. I'm terrified of snakes myself, but wouldn't want them extinct just because of that. Rats exhibit a moderate fear of people, but they are also curious (like foxes, or even people; curiosity is a trait associated with intelligence) and can hang around to watch what happens unlike a more timid creature, like a mouse, which will have rushed for the exit.

Rats are not a threat unless they are harbouring disease! If they aren't in the house, I'd leave them be. And why should they be scared of people? They're at the same level of the food chain as foxes or cats and probably much more intelligent than either.

I've stayed out of this as I didn't want to duplicate LM's posts. I'd add intensive cultivation and mono-cultures, whether organic, GM, or resource intensive to the list of problems. Super-efficient cultivation methods are a key contributor to wast, simply by guaranteeing a surplus year after year. And the costs of generating the surplus are externalised, so there is no incentive to manufacturers to rein back on production so that it just meets demand

Agree - rats are clever social animals, and I doubt that in normal circumstances they'd do silly things like attack babies. See this http://www.sciencemag.org/content/334/6061/1427.short for an account of altruistic behaviour in rats. They are bright enough to learn how to release a fellow rat from a cage and altruistic enough to use this knowledge to help each other and share treats.

Voyageur Wrote: > I wouldn't expect others to share my views though. I seem to share your views exactly, on all counts!

I'd say it's more like saying that someday we won't be able to afford as many pairs of shoes as we currently splurge on. I differ from ajm because in my view, people will always need shoes, just as people will always eat (need?) meat or milk or fish. But I agree with him that people need to accept responsibility for consuming these things. This means cutting down on waste and paying the right price i.e. factoring in the environmental costs, including the cost of ethical treatment of the animals involved. Cheap chicken is cheap because we don't pay the full costs of production i.e. it is imported, so another country bears the environmental cost of poor farming practice, the chickens are intensively farmed, so they themselves bear the cost of un-ethical methods of production etc. This is not just Guardianista sloganising, see even the Daily Wail - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1278495/The-unappetising-truth-McDonalds-chicken-meals.html. And before you remind me (again!), this doesn't cover foie gras,unless it is intensively produced - for which the argument against seems to be almost entirely moral and ethical.

Point taken, H - but I think it's worth moving this debate off its current waffly judgemental stance to think more coherently about the actual environmental cost of meat-eating. I followed the links in the article to the FAO stats website, and the figures (trillions!) of animals annually killed for meat each year are very sobering, as are the figures on the environmental costs of rearing them (and as we know, these figures invariably underestimate the true numbers.)

Chucks this morsel from today's Observer into the Forum : "Eating real meat in 2035 could be as morally questionable as eating foie gras ? and about as expensive. As Dr Mark Post says: "A meat-eater with a bicycle is much more environmentally unfriendly than a vegetarian with a Hummer." http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2013/jan/05/the-future-of-food Then stands well back to watch the feeding frenzy!

*Bob* Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I think it's something called 'fashion', Huge. > Some of it may be a touch ridiculous, but - on > balance - it's makes for brighter world than one > populated solely by pot-bellied thirtysomething's > in chinos and one-size-fits-all pastel-coloured > tees from Uniclo. Oh, I don't know - does this look really involve much effort? It looks like it's about fagging up to Gap instead and chucking away the razor, non - but happy to be educated otherwise

Sue Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > ED - NAGAIUTB Wrote: > -------------------------------------------------- > ----- > >> > > civilservant - what a sanctimonious s**t you > are. > > xxxxxx > > And that post says rather more about you than it > says about civilservant ..... Thanks, Sue! ED-whateverthingy, is that an example of your fluency in 'Chinese'? Having taken a look at your forum archive, I now realise that I couldn't ever have been any help to you as you're burdened not just with a kitbag, but also a stonking great chip on your shoulder. Not even a Bugaboo can cope with that! Back on topic, what Huguenot said.

I suppose a bit of abuse and public posturing is the price we pay for having an active forum. Unfortunately people like aquarius moon get an unfairly large bit of the stick simply because they are too nice to retaliate in kind. I do hope that they'll keep on reminding us how we can do better, in spite of all the petty nastiness that's sent their way.

Isla Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Im intrigued as to why the end two particularly > impress you, why not the first two? Yes, why? Is it something to do with hats? Myself I think the first one is rather fine.