civilservant

gimme that banana - black gorilla

oh? where? everyone seems to be in the business of shoe-horning tall buildings into any available five-square metres-worth of space!

I do take your point - to clarify, I understood from the dermo that steroids will dispel the local flare-up of eczema, but won't dispel the child's overall tendency to eczema. If the child is lucky, its tendency to eczema will reduce with age (very sorry to hear that you are still affected.) My experience with emollients is that they mostly have a palliative/preventive effect, and are rarely effective in making a flare-up go away But I also agree with you that each case is different and that one should try everything and just go with whatever works.

You get a good view of much of the building work including new track if you catch the train to Charing X from Platform 6. Having wandered around the immediate area on foot, must say that the project management of road and site traffic seems exemplary. The only negative is that Guy's Tower has started looking very shabby and overlooked...

I've noticed some people have gone to the bother of covering their bins with sticky-backed plastic (I think) printed with photos of leaves and flowers. Horses for courses - personally, I'd rather have a bright blue bin.

what KatsuQ said - our daughter had eczema from a baby and we did exactly the same following medical advice (including feeling guilty about original hangups re steroid use) by using steroids, you are treating the problem at source - Aveeno etc only deal with the symptoms BTW there are already a couple of extensive threads in this section about treating eczema in children.

but what happened to the OP? just four posts and never heard from again

There are two huge spider webs in our garden, with vigilant owners who arrive to check what's going on if you twang a corner of the web. One of them had a fly victim trussed up in the middle of the web. I don't mind spiders (I used to have a 'pet' spider who lived under my futon - now that's going back awhile!) but can't stand flies, so that's ok by me. Other local wildlife on Crystal Palace Road includes the fox who lives in the garden next door. It is very active at night and drives our dog mental. We live in fear of being shamed on the Forum as owners of a nuisance barking dog!

a heron on CP Road! fantastic! our neighbour has a fishpond - maybe that was the attraction - but it's netted so slim pickings unless its a slim heron and able to slip under the net! I saw a pair of parakeets yesterday dive squawking onto next-door's apple tree, which is absolutely laden with fruit. I have never seen such a harvest on that tree in any of the previous five years we've lived here.

is this the way to Amarillo? - Tony Christie

Inner city blues - marvin gaye

I've started to find hazelnuts in the flowerbed while weeding (we were away much of August and the garden's disappeared into a tangle of green stuff). No hazel trees near us, so I must have disturbed a squirrel's stash. Sorry, squirrel! And I promised sometime ago to find out what if anything we could do to help hedgehogs. Here is a link to a new initiative called Hedgehog Street http://www.hedgehogstreet.org/pages/welcome-to-hedgehog-st.html I think it's been set up by the British Hedgehog Preservation Society . Junior Civilservant has just signed up to get a pack to find out how to be a Hedgehog Champion!

Sunday morning coming down - kris kristofferson

>Masters of war - Bob Dylan renegade master - wildchild

> Cat Scratch Fever: Ted Nugent Skimbleshanks the Railway Cat - Eliot/Lloyd WEbber

Sainsbury's has to sign up to the contract as well. So we should add this clause - Sainsbury's must refrain from blocking use of M'n'B spaces by Organix tents and other obstructions

fever - madonna

Otto, thanks for that! There is some hope after all!

erm, I can't believe I'm the first to post about this entry in today's Guardian diary http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/aug/15/esther-addley-diary-david-cameron. ED and the EDF have achieved undying fame nationwide. Let's all fiddle to celebrate the imminent arrival of Waitrose on LL while the rest of London burns. ? No community is rejoicing more in the return to relative peace following the riots than the residents of East Dulwich in south-east London. Like frightened citizens across the nation, they took to the internet at the height of the disturbances to exchange potentially lifesaving information. On the East Dulwich Forum website, one can still follow the frantic messages of last Tuesday evening. From user thebestnameshavegone at 6.18pm: "I'm expecting Ocado literally any minute ? does anyone know if they've been able to get through Rye Lane." Just over an hour later, Alex K posted. "This sort of thing just pushes further and further into the future any decision by Waitrose to open on Lordship Lane." Thank God it's over!

I think the 'I love Waitrose' thread ran to many more pages. If we added in all the anti-Coop and Somerfield threads, we'd have something that rivals War and Peace for length and complexity, if not sheer excitement. Whooo! We did though on other posts discuss the riots with much vim and vigour (and lack of the forum equivalent of politely holding doors open for others). See where that got some of us - booted off to lurk in Sydenham and other bits of darkest SE London.

No, I don't think Damian H is a troll, he puts too much misguided effort into his posts. In an early post, I agreed that he had a point in the case of the behaviour of some ED residents, but I rapidly lost sympathy when he made a breathtaking inductive leap and extended the accusation of bad behaviour to all ED parents. I'd be quite happy to find common cause with Damian H if he increased his hate-set to include entitlement abusers such as people who sit alone at a table for 4 tapping at a keyboard and sipping at a solitary coffee while others queue and queue and queue for a table (just as bad for business owners as snotty kids with their 'Tommy Tiptrees'), people who sprawl all over the pavement outside pubs and bars with their drinks and cigs, people who insist on sharing their musical tastes unasked etc. Howvever, he's chosen to bash a bunch of easy targets, and complain about their use of a facility that he himself doesn't use. Rational? I ask you.

I am a speccy four-eyes myself, but have never been tempted to have the cut. The main arguments for are convenience and cosmetic, neither of which is close to a life-saving criterion. I've also heard people say that very few actual eye-surgeons undergo the process themselves (but that's not proper evidence, I admit). As Salsaboy points out, long-term outlook is poor, and there may be impacts on night-vision and hence night driving etc. The technique is hard-sold by high-street providers, but see http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2009/mar/26/laser-eye-surgery-risks-consumer-affairs

I voted against Sunday opening, but really like the food offerings on the market and would be very sorry to see it close. My votes go to the Blackbird cake stall and the Frog on the Green cake stall, when they set up at the top of the road -there's loads of demand for them as they always seem to sell out before the end of the day. Miss Dumpling's dumpling sarnies with cheese get the thumbs up from my daughter - and the hog roast, of course. And we've bought some decent stuff from the furniture stalls. agree that you never get much change from a fiver after a walk down there (and why on earth would anyone want to refrigerate cheese or chorizo?)

when you put it like that, it's easy to see why some people might envy us parents our instant access to childish laughter and other small joys - poor old Damian H

no, MP, that was two examples, but thanks for helping to clarify