malumbu

You are still able to walk to both. Or cycle. Or if you really have to drive, you can park near by.

I'd still rather be in a city which encourages cycling. @Rockets do you still cycle?

Crime around my way, not that far from yours, appears to be mainly breaking into builders vans, car thefts and burglaries. The first two are no doubt due to a lot of building work going on, and more up market vehicles. In part due to changing demographics (as perhaps the third) - ie a more affluent neighbourhood. I'm not campaigning for house prices to be controlled, or less affluent people moving in. Nor am I going on about the ULEZ, older vehicles were often upgraded to much more expensive models a few years ago. We update each other through the neighbourhood Whats App, Safer Neighbourhood Team, talking in the street and the like. I'd like a world where there wasn't crime, but I also want less people to die through poor air quality, better physical and mental health, and less carbon emissions. I do not have a binary view on the big issues.

Plenty more where that came from

Many roads outside the LTN are quiet at night. I've found roads like Court Lane no better or worse than other streets in the area. There are roads in some parts of London that I feel less comfortable on, familiarity being a big factor. I lived many years ago near Brixton, and got to know the area quite well, but did not feel comfortable in Peckham. Very much the other way round nowadays. Whatever your view about crime in the area, this thread is pretty repetitive. I'm far more interested in why people commit crime (and why people buy stolen goods), and what can be done by society to reduce this (beyond locking people away). You could gate the whole area, but then crime would simply be displaced and move to another. And when one field proves less lucrative, crims move to another. Many are clever multitaskers.

I was in Guildford today. You don't get bikes running red lights in the centre. That is because it is so bike unfriendly you hardly get any bikes. Just loads of cars. Not the solution I want in the capital and shows how far we have come in London. No doubt there are cycle routes in central Guildford but sobering to see how car centric it is. As no doubt many smaller towns

Yes. I imagine the retail environment is complex and with every change there are winners and losers. The end of retail price maintenance meant the big supermarket chains could undercut small grocers, and specialist shops, the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker Allowing supermarkets to open longer meant the corner shop lost some of its advantages. Changing consumer demographics, the move to the big shop by car (and now on line) rather than walking or getting the bus into town several times a week, and/or local shops, many of which have long since gone, put more pressure on small retailers. But against all this we have niche outlets, farmers markets and the like doing well. Comparing Peckham and East Dulwich is interesting, one has numerous fresh food shops offering good value, the other has products generally costing much more, with their own USPs. Shops come and go, trends come and go, and there is always a risk that demand disappears, or there is more competition. Good discussions thanks. To open it up rather than dwell on the retail environment, how do cheese stalls at the Horniman and Herne Hill farmers market fare? Assuming they are still there - haven't shopped at Horniman since it moved from Saturday and recent visits to Herne Hill have been to buy lunch when going to Brockwell Park.

What do you reckon to this guy who tackles fare dodgers? Would a citizen army that takes on red light jumpers be a good thing?

I liked the Italian Deli at the bottom of Brixton Road, the sort of place that would close for a month in the summer for their hols. It looks like a chain nowadays. There was also one in Sydenham, long since gone.

Mozzarella from Lidl is superb, it went up a lot in price in recent years but still cheap. They have bureatta as well at the mo. Extra mature cheese has less fat, which is the stuff that melts. I'm talking more cheese on toast here, rather than welsh rarebit which as you say is based on a roux/beer/wine/mustard (and even egg).

Yes, I cycled up to Tootling and back, massive crater on the South Circ, then further lights up before Tulse Hill - may be connected, and as for Streatham High Road.... Clearly Lambeth and Southwark have it in for motorists. They should coordinate their road works with Thames Water's catastrophic failures of the water mains.

Wrong thread. Warning for those endorsing extra mature cheddar, it's not great for welsh rarebit as it doesn't melt.

Let them eat brioche! (Marie Antoinette's apparent comment on the poor, which she apparently never said, but that is a Lounge discussion).

Have you ever wondered how you get triangle from a cow? You need butter, milk and cheese and an equilateral chain saw.

Picking up from another discussion what are people's views on local cheese shops? I've used the Cheese Block, and in Pimlico, Rippon Cheese, since the 90s. I particularly liked the latter as they had a separate walk in cold store for the cheeses that needed to be stored this way. Supermarket cheeses are generally inferior, although Lidl occasionally stocks interesting Greek island cheeses, or continental. Price differential is ginormous. I have never used Mons and was surprised that there was enough demand for two shops in SE22, noting of course the Cheese Block offers other deli products. I've used Heritage Cheese from time to time, as nice to walk down to the village. I expect changing demographics have increased demand for high end quality products. I recall Borough Market when it was a modest fruit and veg market, before Jamie Oliver put it on the map about 20 years ago. [edited this is probably from the Naked Chef 1999 - 2002)].

I think gender is appropriate: (AI view): Sex and gender are distinct concepts, though they are often confused. Sex generally refers to biological characteristics like chromosomes, hormones, and reproductive organs, while gender encompasses a person's internal sense of self as male, female, or non-binary, and the social and cultural roles associated with each. OED says similar. A lounge conversation,

@exdulwicher Road users to stop from time to time, I've done it both on push bike and motorbike, usually a domestic where the women is getting grief. The chap who chased the mobile phone thief on the bike from Forest Hill Road in his van getting the rider to give the phone up a few months ago is a local legend. Whether it 1%, 10% or more I don't know. Post Covid I expect that theft from vans has gone up. I doubt if it is anything to do with Covid rather, so much more building work going on. Crime is dependent on numerous factors. I feel totally safe cycling down Court Lane. As I always have done. This is a broader discussion on crime, I'm not joining in this debate about the wild west/LTN.

Hope you enjoyed the day, it was good to have almost an hour's play. I'm sure Boycott would have been telling the England batters to hit that red thing with the lump of willow you have in your two hands.

Well that was a surprise, a few spots of rain around here but heavy downpour over Kensington. I'll be in the Queen Ann in Vauxhall Pleasure gardens for an early lunch I expect. Looks like an exciting end to a great series Back to politics, sad to see the Tour de France off terrestrial telly. Whilst we can't protect a French competition so sad we lost free to air test cricket. But even then commentary on TMS is superior yo Sky.

Who is interviewing you? The police or your insurers? Is the rider providing a fake name, address and insurance details? All the incidents that I am aware of, this is the case. I forgot to add that you should report insurance fraud to the ABI as well: https://www.abi.org.uk/products-and-issues/topics-and-issues/fraud/ Although I'm not sure how effective the ABI are beyond gathering data/intelligence

It's unprofessional, and possibly illegal. There are procedures to complain.

An easier on the ear version And the chance to see them live https://www.cafeoto.co.uk/events/alternative-tv-2025/

The riders involved have be known to use Brazilian celebrities as their aliases. They perhaps could be of Venezuelan, Chilean, Argentinian heritage or hail from other parts of the continent. But it is most likely Brazil. It's going well beyond Southwark, so it is a gang or gangs The article on Nappy Valley reports many similar incidents, and a reference to Brazilian gangs, and the video is exactly as one reported to me with bystanders telling the rider to bugger off. https://nappyvalleynet.com/community/viewtopic.php?t=132033 The article in Insurance Times also quotes Brazilian gangs https://www.insurancetimes.co.uk/analysis/the-rising-prominence-of-moped-crash-for-cash-fraud/1453295.article It is useful for potential victims and the authorities to know whether one particular community is heavily involved. Most immigrants of course are law abiding and contribute to our economy and our diverse community. Article from Grauniad https://www.theguardian.com/business/article/2024/may/22/uk-drivers-warned-to-watch-out-for-crash-for-cash-claims And from parliament https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cdp-2024-0107/ "The insurance industry provides some estimates on the number of claims that are related to crash for cash. For example, the Insurance Fraud Bureau, a not-for-profit company that coordinates the industry response to insurance fraud, estimated that around 170,000 car insurance claims between October 2019 and the end of 2020 were linked to crash for cash fraud schemes. It has also estimated that annually there are 69,500 personal injury claims linked to suspected crash for cash scams (PDF) (costing the insurance industry £392 billion a year), though no particular year is given for this information." Disappointing therefore that there is a parallel industry of ambulance chasers and dodgy lawyers involved, that insurers may roll over and just pay and that grass roots policing is not always well joined up.

David Attenborough has also done programmes on this amazing relationship. This is from 2010 but I am sure that there were more recent programmes on the Beeb https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p006ry61 Mummy trees are amazing.

You will be pleased that there were workers there yesterday, I didn't confirm their gender but to be safe, apart from reference to the subpostmasters's scandal where the term applies to both genders, I use gender neutral words for professions. There were no long queues of traffic, so nothing really to go on about. In fact I'm not sure why I am posting. Edited, inspected and a really nice repair to the road, well down Conway, I may send them a nice email. It's good to have some positivity!