malumbu

Pleased that you are happy. In these difficult times it is nice to hear some good news.

I think we saw this amongst the English fans last night

Discussion has totally lost me - 'you lot' are talking in tongues again. Returning to the original subject I was going to post "Ah diddums, are we a likle bit upset because Peckham is more desirable than SE22" But that would be unnecessarily provocative. I like lists as see them as good fun, noting that they are subjective and info can be manipulated. I quite like 'crap towns'. Also recall a TV programme that had a list of the most dangerous towns to live in. For London they broke this down to the borough level, whilst Nottingham which most think is a lovely place to live in was tarred with one brush based on the drugs and gangs in the Meadows and St Annes and was considered to be the most dangerous place in the country.

next summer? well what a bummer. (Copywrite the Stanglers, Peaches).

Agree with all of this. On the positive side I am now starting to do a separate dogs leg from Lameth Road at the Imperial War museum going South up the dual cycle lane. Whilst I am not a fan of going North on this the synchronisation of lights is great going the other way, and you avoid the dreadful, dreadful, funneling of traffic going left just by the Bakerloo Line tube entrance and the conflict as cars turn left just after the bus lane. That is probably not explained well!

There are lots of the E&C layout that allows shared use of pavements - makes some interesting cut-throughs or ways to bypass red lights. Not illegal but preferable to have signalling that allows smoother flows. Having had my moans I am sure that it is better for pedestrians to navigate and I expect that the layout has reduced congestion from and into the Walworth Road (not that I use this). I'll get back with further thoughts, meanwhile here's a blog from Sunstrans on their views on congestion, sharing road space and the impact of cycling. Came across a little idealistic to me http://www.sustrans.org.uk/blog/cycling-cities?utm_source=Sustrans&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=8085080_The%20Network%20Mar%202017&utm_content=Will%20blog%20footer&dm_i=6EB,4TAHK,A1PZC8,I59MA,1

Maybe been done already but my fave is Vaidas in Honor Oak. I do Evans when really necessary (nice bunch in Wimbledon) and similarly Action Bikes for convenience. I did Brixton Cycles for years, but once I stopped going down that route it was out of my way. Finches in Forest Hill are nice, but prefer them for other leisure activitie, being better than the 'specialist' shops around Covent Garden. Decathlon is odd, half the stuff is excellent value and the rest poo. And quite often empty shelves of the useful things to buy in bulk like brake blocks. Quite helpful though. And of course Lidl when the offers are there. Occasionally on line, which makes me feel guilty. Condor were great at quoting me for the cycle scheme, due to my physical needs (ie size) I actually went out to Pershore (Worcestershire) to buy my last bike. 30 years ago I would have purchased from Halfords, I now only go there for exceptional offers, but again interestingly their customer service was very good when something went wrong so be careful of your prejudices.

I am incredibly conservative on my routes. For 15 years I did Dulwich Village, Red Post Hill, Herne Hill Road, Loughborough Junction, Brixton Road. Essentially as I once lived off Herne Hill Road and knew the route. Then I did a bizarre one - Champion Hill, Grove Lane, Camberwell, through a bit of Burgess Park, coming out near the Elephant where I went behind Southbank Uni and eventually onto Blackfriars Road. Funnily enough never experienced danger on either Blackfriars Bridge or more recently the Elephant, even though they are known accident hotspots. One day I saw that a colleague had beaten me and I found out that she went down the canal path, OKR etc. Looking at the map this was the flatest and straightest route. Embarassingly I was worried about Peckham at the time - despite having no issues in going through Loughborough Junction which was far more dangerous. On dangers, the main one from my Brixton Road route was road rage; something I am far more aware of now. The other was the hit and run on Red Post Hill that slammed me into a back of a parked car. No helmet in those days, and very lucky at the bike was a write off not me. Now - as I discussed above the odd vehicle that runs a bit close - not always men, and a mix of vans, cars and taxis at say once a month. And genuinely you can hear them coming. For a time I went down the back roads on traffic calmed routes. Two incidents - the funny one when a family ran out in front of me, I banged the anchors on, went 90 degrees and fell on one of the school kids. He wasn't hurt and I was angry at the parent for letting them run across. An no apologies to the zombies who walked across tonight on their phones without looking near Lambeth Palace. Yes did cycle at you on purpose. Perhaps you may look in future. Anyway I digress. The other bother was two accidents in quick succession when they relaid the roads around Heygate street, and the white lines were too slippy causing me to come off twice in quick succession in the rain, ironically on the cycle marking. Thanks to Southwark Cyclists - and particularly the late Barry Mason. Thanks to the cycling solicitors who gave me free advice. And thanks LBS for settling out of court. And Southwark Cyclists, we had a good on line chat aobut a NKR cycle lane which I very much argue against. So where does that leave us? I started cycling in London 30 years ago when there were far less of us. I have a small number of routes which I know off the back of my hand. Cycling super highways generally go in the wrong direction for me so I cut across them, only once gettng grief from a cabbie for not using the segregated route. I am out of my comfort zone when I go down the embankment and see zillons of cyclists hammering it - I prefer the road as the cars generally get less close to you than bikes coming the other way on segregated routes! I get confused on Blackfriars Road on which side I should be on. I get frustrated at the bottle necks, for example by the Royal Vauxhall Tavern and peed off when tubleweed and debris blow across the segregated routes making them more dangerous than the main road. But just because I am happy cycling with the cars, shouldn't mean that I don't see the benefits to the masses of some of the cycle routes. My favourite useless cycle route is the A4 going out to Heathrow - cracked paving stones and junctions/drives every few yards whereas you can do 15mph on the nice road surface of the A4. And talking about pants, Heathrow access is exactly that, where I cycle through the tunnel waving two fingers up at the CCTV (did that in 1995 and returned last year to find still no cycle access.). Another great ride was the A13 cycle path, great cycling next to an urban motorway.... In case you couldn't tell I work in environmental transport and know shedloads. I had a 20 minutes conversation with Ashok, CEO LCC one summer, poor chap! But I still drive occasionally, have a motorbike licence and only got back into cycling by mistake (as is most of my career) so understand that apart from London the masses aren't doing this elsewhere and on a cold wet day when I am going to a meeting and have the choice of sitting in my wet clothes or having to bring a change of clothes and change in the toilets I understand the challege. Thanks LJC56 - I'll check it out. And thanks to "you lot" (I mean this politely) for listening. Always enjoy the debate.

It's all a dog's dinner. I had no issues before as whilst busy it was fairly predictable and the light sequencing worked well. It's added time to my journey, bus journeys and those tin boxes. The cycle path next to the new development and the coronet is just bizarre, being so peacemeal and as with all cycle paths on a pavement people just walk out in front of it without looking. The dogs leg where you come back on yourself heading from the gryratory is weird. I don't use the segregated bits either way on the gyratory as I don't see any need for them. Going further into town Lambeth Bridge south is a disaster, and again the light sequencng makes things worse. Oddly all the attention is on the Lambeth Bridge South roundabout. The flows were fine with just one set of lights. What's good? I'm very fond of the canal path and unsure why others aren't fans. Generally co-exist with the pedestrians with no issues. Chourmert Road area, but haven't quite memorised that one. In is a quiet route but lots of junctions. Southwark cyclists - I am sure that you are active with regards to air quality. A good driver is a safer driver, sharing road space, not wasting fuel, and causing less pollution. Fortunately you can hear the poorer drivers, as they are racing in a low gear, and you istinctively know to get closer to the curb. It happens once or twice a week.

This is great, not deep but just funny and a nice small theatre too (you wont be stuck up in the Gods) http://www.thecomedyaboutabankrobbery.com/

A geezer laid a new patio for us last summer (legitimate garden company). It sorted of looked OK but finshing was iffy and now it is falling apart. He laid it on dried sand and grouted in-between. The grout was soft, water is getting in, the slabs are lifting and eventually fauna and flora will get in. I of course have have office worker's hands so will know nothing (despite repairing houses, cars, motorbikes and bike for 40 years) so our follow-up convesations will be interesting. I'd rather just say give me half the money back and I'll get somebody in decent. Questions: I know that you can lay on dry sterilised sand and grout, but I'd prefer to use a wet mortar mix (say 4:1)- views out there? What do I do will all the old sand (can soft sand go into the garden, sharp sand is good in clay areas) Recommendations for a small patio job? Should have gone with my instinct and not used this local company. I'm not in a postion to name and shame quite yet.

Used to love the India Club in the Strand Continental - closest I have experienced to sub-continent dining unlike the formulaic curry houses. A certain tatty charm, and not licensed so you could either go to the bar upstairs or bring your own. Last time wasn't so great so was it just a case of being over-familar, a bad night, or a drop in standards. Love to know what others think. Google reviews are polarised, most love it, some hate it.

Happy to have a go at the Daily Hate and the Daily Brexit at any point. Irrespective whether we buy them or not, their stories end up being sydicated on-line to numerous sources.

Have I dreamt this or has someone really put this thread up. Society is falling apart, we are on the brink of economic collapse, we will be caught in a battle between the axis (US and Russia) and China) but it's all OK as there is a M&S in Camberwell. Rejoice.

Drinking first thing in the morning is in deed a pleasure. Been to the Market Porter once, usually go to Smithfields but last Xmas I think that they were down to only two pubs open early morning. Biggest issue is knocking back too many, they go down surprisingly easy!

CAP's been a mess for years (or always) so I was alwasys suprised how little airing this got during the campaign. If we don't subsidise farming/guarantee prices (whether nationally or across Europe) we stop growing stuff as we did in the early part of the 20th century risking food security, particulaly in the heightened liklihood of war across Europe (yes I am milking this). Good metaphor. I get all my info from the Archers, so I expect the market to be flooded with cheap Polish lamb.

One of my teams is still in the FA Trophy and another through to the semis of the FA Vase. Perhaps both will make it to Wembley for the double header http://www.thefa.com/news/2016/nov/24/non-league-finals-day-ticket-news-241116

Great fight-back by Dulwich after almost throwing it away early on, and pleased that Palace got the points even though I destest BFS.

It's gone too far. But then you'd expect me to say that. For a very diverse area Brixton Village didn't seem very diverse. Same too about Peckham. Not that you can engineer this in my Utopian world!

You store it in your garage. What, we don't have garages??! Dunno, perhaps they could be like Zipcars and you'd hire them when needed (a one-up on Boris Bikes). About half of new cars come with automatic stop starts but it doesn't stop meat heads from pressing the button to disable this As cars become more sophisticated they will communicate more with their surroundings. 'Geofencing' is already there for example New York cabs operating in Manhattan can only run on electric mode for the meter to work

TheArtfulDogger Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Welcome to the 7:15 to Calcutta Rendle, plenty of > room on the roof, outside and in the luggage > racks.... People who assume that trains in India have people on the roofs, they don't

This was a reference to a Sinclair C5. Perhaps ahead of its time (and if the press hadn't ridiculed it) may have been a great success. Unbeknown to me there has been a revamp www.theengineer.co.uk/sinclair-c5-revamped-by-sir-clives-nephew/ If you want to declog a filter drive the car at 90mph in 3rd gear, that will get it hot enough. There are garages that remove the filters illegally and then weld up the box - sooner or later the MOTs will become sophisticated enough to detect this. Sadly trading standards are under-resourced and it is no longer in the police's job description to pull-up defective vehicles (as they did when I was a lad!). Sounds like a good job for PCSOs to do - they can be empowered to do this. To be fair I only see diesels pumping out black once or so a week. A good thing about Uber is the move to hybrids (for congestion tax not pollution reasons, but still the right result). Thought the Mayor in Robert Peston (which I saw whilst flicking channels) was very on the ball on Sunday. Hydrogen (fuel cells) has great potential for the future as you can have a national pipeline network. Still rather expensive at the moment.

Cheers, I was chatting to a colleague today and suggested we needed a very light single seater battery powered vehicle, that would have pedal assistance. Sadly someone tried this 30 years ago and it was ridiculed.

Thanks, the weather was hot so no problems with snow/ice. Thrifty were difficult to contact - could only upgrade insurance on line, and didn't want to phone up the office. But the car (Alfa) came with snow chains in the boot, not sure if there is any compulsion but it was very reassuring. They seem to be part of Hertz. They gave me an automatic. I've only driven them infrequently and this was one were it goes into a manual sort of mode if you grab the shifter and think you are driving a manual - freaky as suddenly you are stuck in one gear. Have no knowledge of how to drive an auto on slippy surfaces, is it easier than a manual. Is there not a thread on "where I go skiing, darling'? Or in my case - how can I minimise the costs and still have a good time?

Most of us voted for him. He had two landslide elections, almost unheard of. Yes he is annoying, you sort of want to brush him off your shoulder. The inability to give a straight answer for fear of offending. Being a Thatcherite, sort of, certainly in support of the free market. Not reversing the selling off of state assets. Toadying to the Americans (which we have seen before, and are seeing now) with the dreadful mistake of believing WMD, regime change etc. Not ending the boom/bust cycle. But if we can ignore much of that there were some good things as a moderniser, a more prosperous nation, social fairness, trade unions, and generally as a world stateman. He was not a control freak like his successor and more so the current PM, 7/7 showed this (of course it may not have happened if....) And not an idiot like the last bloke. Old labour, and 'new' old labour were/are unelectable. No answers I am afraid.