candj

Have you checked your spam ? My PMs occasionally get spammed.

Look at these beauties... posh and beaks On the flip side, a few years ago Westminster Council were shooting pigeons with some sort of air rifle. My husband's office is in St. James's and we would go to work finding pigeon parts all over the pavements and alleys. Not at all pleasant and I think I'd rather have live pigeons crowding the pavements rather than a set of bloodied wings at the doorstep. yuck! Note: This has since stopped, for all you animal lovers out there! :)

Yes, btw, congratulations! You have better things to look forward to.

Received Councillor Susan Jones' out of office reply to my email sent to her yesterday. She is on holiday until the 27th September. No response from the other two councillors as of yet.

Oh how tragic!

That's odd. So the council did or didn't consult the vicarage before painting it blue, but now have to consult them with regards to the restoration of the mural.

No, this is completely illegal. You've already told your boss that you're pregnant, he cannot come back with the "well I was going to fire you anyway" line. Please go see an employment solicitor at once. This happened to a friend of mine and she was compensated as she didn't really want her job back with her b*****d boss. Good luck. Don't let it get to you as it's the last thing you want to have to deal with! -C

Where I'm from, we used to be able to buy these big plastic predatory looking models of owls - kind of like the scarecrow effect for crows. We'd plop it on the roof somewhere and you wouldn't see anymore pigeons or other birds for that matter. I have never seen these things in the UK, but if they exist, they really work. *Edited for the use of too many adjectives

Ratty, PA is currently our GP. We haven't seen her is a while because we haven't needed to (touch wood, thank God and all that). Is something the matter with her? I hope all is okay. Is Dr. Johnson the other GP you are thinking of? It is such a shame that EBG has left as she was lovely and my oldest really liked her. Alas. Thanks for any info on PA. -C

Agreed (ouch!) AFN, all one has to do is to take Battersea/Clapham as a perfect example. This area is rife with Victorian properties being turned into flats, with houses getting extensions (side returns being filled in, lofts being done, gardens being taken away). Parking is a massive problem as is traffic congestion around and through the area, rubbish collection is third world-like - the the bin men being aggressive and angry at the amount that rubbish has increased (this last point I've seen first hand). The local schools are quite taxed, as well. The social problems are endless, but it is a pervasive problem in London, a desirable capital city where people want to move despite the housing shortage.

I don't think it's about the artistic merit of the mural (it's rather naive, in fact), but rather that it is/was part of the community and people enjoyed it. It also looked nice over the playground. But now the space looks even worse than it did before and is ironically open to being targeted by the very graffiti it was covering. I honestly think it can be restored if the council were to take the time and spend some ??. It would entail removing the offending blue paint and subsequent graffiti underneath and having someone to basically repaint the areas that were damaged (ie, where the original mural paint were stripped away). The mural itself is not that old and is on brick as opposed to something more fragile like gesso on plaster so it could probably handle the process. Thanks for the link, will send off an email to the appropriate drone at Southwark.

Eileen, Sorry to hear this. You are not the only one as there was a recent thread about this exact thing. If you do a search you'll find it (sorry, I tried to add the link but it didn't work). Someone should start a neighbourhood watch ... with Staffordshire terriers.

That is absolutely outrageous Mark. What idiots the council are and do they actually think it looks better? I can't even imagine the reason behind doing this. I wonder if it could possibly be restored.

Bon3yard, surely Thursday is named after the Norse God, Thor, no? You know, the redheaded hammer thrower, God of Thunder? It isn't so much as madness just people running out of ideas to name things - like the Dutch streets of Dulwich, for example.

Hello AllforNun, It is a shame really when there is a shortage of family dwellings in ED. Southwark planning rules are such that the dimensions of the flats proposed have to be over a certain size (depending if they are one bedrooms/two bedroom flats). I think this is an across the board rule and Southwark are serious to enforce it. A few years ago a 3 bedroom Victorian terrace came on the market across the street from us, was snapped up from a developer who stupidly didn't get planning permission to turn it into flats and assumed that it would be okay from the council, tried to get planning as the works were in progress (ie, already did the loft conversion, kitchen extension,) and was rejected and had to leave it as a house. He was a silly man indeed, but we were happy as a lovely family have moved in since*. He still made money in the end selling it as a single house, but probably not as much as he would have made if it were sold as two flats. *not a class thing, we would have been happy if two lovely families moved into two flats! Off to go bake some organic acorn and grass bread now... ;-)

...But not the language as some (myself included) would like! ;-)

Spot on! I'm THE founding member of the Shanghai clique!

Shake

Eutruscian

Hierarchy, social games? Pine nut and daffodil bread? Do you know me? I think not. Stop generalising, it's not pretty.

Dear ruthb, Please don't be so defensive, you're posting for the first time on a thread where people are clearly unhappy about a recent change in local pub. Try to understand where they are coming from. You ask why disagreeing is considered rude, but by telling someone to "move out of the area and stop reading the Daily Mail" sounds incredibly rude also, telling people to calm down sounds patronizing to people you don't know... Also, your quote of "it's a pub we're people go to enjoy themselves. Often through this type of social event noise is created. Sometimes there is violence because alcohol is consumed, alcohol is sold in pubs... and so on and so forth." is scary reasoning, IMHO. If I lived near to the FHT, I'd be pretty upset as well. Sorry that it seems that everyone has jumped on you, I hope it doesn't keep you away from posting in the future. :) ps- SeanMacGabhann, is one of the nice people!!

The Federal Reserve have given a $85 billion loan to AIG. I suppose the problem with AIG going under is the fact that it is an insurance company and would effect millions of insurance policies. With regards to all the anti-Goldman Sachs sentiment - you don't want to see any bank go under as it has far reaching ramifications well beyond the smug 30,000 people it would leave unemployed.

You're probably right Sue, we did a Sunday afternoon for 3 hours. Around the holidays and during the evenings is probably more ????s.

Don't worry about general anaesthesia you'll be absolutely fine as long as they weigh you before - which they will of course. You might wake up feeling a bit of nausea and won't be able/shouldn't drive (but sounds like you'll stay over night anyway). Good luck with the op.

We had a kids birthday party at St. Thomas More Hall a while ago - ?75 to hire the hall and they didn't charge for bar staff as it was Jimmy Burns who runs the place behind the bar (but we did give him a drink or two). It's a bit of 70 retro-shock for decor, but great place otherwise and great for transport links, if that's an issue.