ribrob

Johnnies is easily the best value / great food cafe in East Dulwich. Family-friendly, great range of options and always accomodating. I hope they make it through the inevitable downturn in business. Looking forward to going back.

I got a message from virgin saying it?s working again, but it ain?t. Was originally saying fix was tomorrow morning, now post ?fix? it?s saying 8:45 tonight. Status... https://my.virginmedia.com/faults/service-status

We also had Andy back round recently to make good after having had some damp-proof specialists in. Andy refitted architrave and skirting boards, repaired wallpaper and repainted everything. You'd never know we'd had the damp-proofing done! Rob

We've had Andy round for the last week redecorating our kitchen, which was in great need of some tlc since it was last done 10 years ago. He repainted the walls, ceiling and windows / doors / skirting (also replacing a section of it), and sanded and re-oiled our wooden worktop, resealing around its edges. At the end of each day he cleaned and tidied up the space, so it never felt like the area was out of bounds which can often be the case with other trades people until they've finished. He also gave some helpful advice and lent me some of his kit for other diy work i was doing elsewhere in the house. He was incredibly patient with youngest who seemed to make it her mission to be especially nosy during his visits! His rates are very reasonable (and he didn't want paying until the job was done), and everything was done to a very high standard. Would recommend.

It's important to remember that Picturehouse was once an indie, and as a result was good value. Now they're part of Cineworld / Vue, they've picked up most of the inflated costs of that part of the cinema world. Fortunately they've retained their indie feel, as that's one of the main draws for me. Each branch has it's own personality, rather than cookie cutter approach of Odeon, Vue etc.

Also having a polite word with the those drilling, rather than posting here, is probably more effective!

Okay, let me pre-face this by saying i see about 4 or 5 films a month - so i go to cinemas, a lot of them. But if we're focussing on ones walkable from East Dulwich... PeckhamPlex Without fail - and i mean *every* time i've been there in recent years, people have been more than happy to talk throughout the movie and use their phones at any opportunity. By "use" their phones i mean the full range; take photos, make or take calls, browse the web, have full txt conversations etc. Staff don't do anything about it. As a result i can't enjoy a movie there anymore - i used to live 30 seconds from it and used to go to it all the time - but back then it was way better - but these days it's a bit of a free for all. The only way round that is to wait until the film is about to leave the cinema (as everyone who may want to see it has by that point) or go and see some off-beat art-house film that nobody seems interested in. Screening rooms are also always a mess, which i could live with if i could enjoy the film without someone there always spoiling it for everyone else. Lots of big screens, but the seats are incredibly uncomfortable. Other than the price, it's easily the consistently least pleasurable cinema-going experience i've had. I still go as PH doesn't get all the releases, but always end up regretting it. Dulwich Picture House Never had any disturbances from the audience, the screening rooms are always clean when you go in, sure the food and drink on sale is expensive, but so is what's at PeckhamPlex and at least PH's is healthier if you want it to be. Only not-ideal visit was when they ran 15-rated trailers at a kids film screening and a couple of the trailers had swearing. A word with the manager on the way out resulted in 6 free tickets. Sadly not all big screens, but all seating is *very* comfortable. In terms of pricing, sure it's way more expensive than PeckhamPlex, but it's not really any more expensive than any other of the main cinema chains out there if you ignore discount days. PH has it's own discount day when tickets are are half price, and Tue/Wed you've got 1 get 1 free with Meerkat movies (which you can get for a year by taking out single trip travel insurance for just ?1 - try it!). There's also ?2.50 for kids screenings however old you are and discounts at Silver Screen showings (again open to all ages). If you go a lot, there's annual membership - ?104 gets you 8 tickets, ?2 off regular ticket prices and 10% off all food and drink (20% if you renew again). Personally when i go to the cinema to watch something, rather than wait for it to be on streaming / telly, i want the experience to be as good as it can be. Sure PH is pricier, but it's better, and there's all manner of ways of making PH's pricing work, and get a better customer / viewing experience as you do. If the experience isn't important you should *absolutely* save your money and go to PeckhamPlex, but if it does, PH is your best bet.

Abe_froeman Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > The train services now are pretty good. > > If you remember the disastrous implementation of > the last timetabling amendments it might make you > think we should be grateful for what we have now ! I wouldn't call just 2 trains an hour from Denmark Hill to St.Pancras during rush hour, that you can't board because they're so over-crowded, as "pretty good".

Ah so the mobile phone thing wasn't just me then? Didn't bother to mention that as 3's always flaky at ours. Didn't know all the mobile networks had gone on the blink. Everything's back to normal now - very weird.

FFS, fibre down again on Spurling Road. Have people also noticed that whenever it dies, devices within the house stop connecting to each other across WiFi too?

Did some digging the other day into other fibre services, in Spurling Road at least, there's no other options. If only Virgin have fibred your road, then only Virgin can give you highspeed internet. After 2 hours calling around, the maximum anyone could offer us - BT included - was up to 8mb ADSL. That's basically useless in a family house were the parents often work from home. I don't how many roads haven't been done by BT round here, but if BT hasn't done your road as well as Virgin, then Virgin's your only option, as all the other suppliers use BT's fibre infrastructure.

Dead in spurling road too.

But does anyone other than Virgin Media provide fibre connections in East Dulwich? I?m pretty sure our road (Spurling Road) is just VM. I can?t face going back to adsl speeds, too much streaming and downloading across the family for that to be viable anymore.

Hmmm, not sure that the two only options for humanity are a rat plague or pooh in UlStED's garden, there's probably a third option somewhere. rendelharris Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Can I just throw in here (as someone who doesn't > currently own cats) that if all domestic cats were > removed at a stroke the rat population would > quadruple within a month and continue to expand > exponentially (due to their rapid breeding cycle, > a single pair of rats can be responsible for > 15,000 new rats in a year, and half a billion > within three years). I agree that all cat owners > should be responsible and provide litter trays and > encourage cats to use them, but as any cat owner > knows they're wilful buggers and do as they > please. But a bit of cat shite or a plague of > rats, your shout!

rendelharris Wrote: > Extremely unlikely that cats will have been > regularly relieving themselves on a hard surface > like astroturf, they always want something they > can kick over. Much more likely foxes, that seem > to prefer hard surafces, as the state of my garden > step regularly tesitifies. We have astro turf too, and i assure you that cats will, and do, crap on it. Regularly. I've watched them do it. I'm with DulwichBorn&Bred, my children should be free to play in our garden without the fear of rolling in cat-crap. People have a right to prevent animals using their garden as a toilet, for both practical and health reasons. Deterrents like pepper or gel all get washed away after a day's rain, so aren't workable solutions. But DulwichBorn&Bred, i will also say that owners probably do have a litter down, and the cats access to it. They just prefer to go outside - when we had a cat, he did the same. In fact, having a cat was the only true deterrent to other cats crapping in our garden. Sadly though, i expect he was probably crapping in our neighbours' gardens.

Yup, after a shaky start this morning I?m back to full speed again

I never call the support line these days as it?s alwaays a total waste of time. They haven?t a clue and will only ever annoy you more, I seriously don?t know why VM even bother with it they must know it serves no value. I just go to the online support forums, report it when it happens and if it goes on, subsequently seek a refund. It?s never much, but every little helps. I?ve never known anything to get sorted by VM as a result of a call, and I?ve learny to never believe a word the operators tell you. I?ve heard so many BS stories and promises. I get more reliable and constructive info here. Then it?s generally a case of sitting it out until a fix. I just wanted to be sure it wasn?t my setup.

Completely unable to log in today, no connection whatsoever. System says ?Access Denied?, but no hardware?s been touched or logins changed. I?ve had many issue with VM before, but this is a new one. I?m on Spurling Road near the EDT.

Sorry to hear this, it's always frustrating to feel you've not made a good buy. There have been issues with some batteries in the iPhone 6. Apple is running a repair programme... https://www.apple.com/uk/iphone-battery-and-performance/ ...the seller should have probably told you this, but sadly they're not obliged to do so. They'll argue the info is out there to be found. If the phone is running the latest iOS 11 the phone itself could tell you the condition of the battery before you handed over the cash. Take a look at this... ...it'll help you determine if the battery really is the issue. If it is, and you didn't pay too much for the phone, paying Apple ?25 to get it sorted isn't the end of the world. But do do that, don't go to a street corner place, you'll get a poorer battery than Apple will give you, and in some cases they may cause other problems with the phone.

Data on three is usually terrible from Denmark hill station to about a third of the way up lordship lane. Voice works ok outside but is poor inside. The only reason I tolerate them is their unlimited data bundle.

Where abouts in ED are you @thecat? TheCat Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Virgin broadband been shocking this week, hasn't > dropped out altogether, but been very > intermittent, particularly in the evening (much > worse than usual)....just me? Or others getting > similar?

Organised for Virgin to come over the weekend to fix things as they said there's also a problem with our modem as well as with their network. Stayed in most of Saturday and nobody turned up. Apparently i contacted them to cancel the appointment. A new excuse to beat all others. They've also formally acknowledge the contention issue's back (if it ever went)... "there does appear to be a high demand for our service in your area under the fault reference F004756302, with a review set for 29 MARCH 2017" What a bunch of idiots.

Anyone else been without internet since this morning? We're at the EDT end of Lordship Lane.

Anyone having issues with Virgin Media "broad"band today? Keeping getting patches of no connection.

@ed_pete's right, Virgin did do a fix earlier this year which sorted things out. I went from regularly getting less than 2mb to consistently getting between 50-100mb. @mickmack, i've got a package from Virgin without a landline. I had to harass them to get it, but we simply never used the the landline so there was no point paying for it.