Senor Chevalier

OK, so inevitably this has descended into yet another a motorists versus public transport / cyclists scrum (yawn). As a user of public transport, daily cyclist and occasional (say twice monthly) motorist, I am going to attempt to respond to the OP without getting bogged down too much. Here goes... Traffic wardens (IMHO) should be trying to enforce the rules in order to remove incorrectly parked cars and restore the flow of traffic / leave spaces available for residents etc. Their behaviour of "waiting in the wings" for motorists to make an error, disappear into a shop and then issue a PCN serves to increase the length of time that vehicles are in violation of the rule. They are representatives of the Council and should first and foremost inform the public of the rules in a helpful way to prevent the offence / restore the situation as expediently as possible. This never (seldom?) happens. By waiting until the motorist has gone, they are prioritising fee income over rules enforcement. This is just wrong. I once had a similar situation where despite my usual paranoia about where to park, I parked with a pay and display ticket incorrectly in a "resi only" bay that was adjacent to a P&D bay. Clearly an honest mistake. The warden saw me park where I did, waited until I left and issued a ticket 2 mins later when I was around the corner. I was in violation of the rules, but I argued my case and won at adjudication. This was in Wandsworth where the traffic wardens (as a matter of policy) are required to give motorists the opportunity to move vehicles before issuing a PCN and I had a good case that the warden had been there at the time (takes a couple of mins to issue a ticket and I had the time on the parking ticket and on my P&D ticket as evidence) and had not followed their own policy. I had a quick look on the Southwark site and can unfortunately see nothing about wardens giving the public an opportunity to move first. RB - Doubt you'd have a case here. I was fuming as I had seen the warden looking at my car whilst I was posting my P&D ticket and he had said nothing, whereas I don't think your warden was necesarily there as you had parked. Still it is a bit of an outrage that fines are prioritised over informing and upholding rules. You could write to the Council and ask a closed question re policy - is it (a) to inform and enforce or (b) to allow rules to be broken and fees to be issued. Anyway a good reminder to motorists to remain absolutely paranoid about where to park at all times.

Hi Anna We had Bifold doors fitted about 4 years ago and learned a few lessons in the process... Firstly they are quite expensive if you want decent ones. We went for a cheap option that our builder supplied and they never worked that well. There are lots of systems out there, some top hung, some with the weight on the runner at the bottom. There seem to be ever more companies that supply them. I would suggest you start with a structural engineer. Assuming you are increasing the size of the opening, you will need a steel beam across the opening if the masonary can take it (or steel picture frame if it can't). Your engineer may be able to advise on the various systems and which to choose, or if you send him the products you are thinking about then he can look at the detail. Things to look for: 1) Light easy to open (top hung better for this I think) only real way to try this is at a showroom. 2) Low profile handles allowing stacking Flush (you want the doors to stack neatly back on themselves taking up the minimum of space when fully opened so make sure the handles do not get in the way of this by banging into each other or the frame of other door panels when fully open) 3) Level Thresholds (if you want inside and outside at the same level without a cill to trip over then this gets tricky - you need a solution to prevent damp bridging as usually there is a step down to outside with an air brick under your floor level. Answer is a concealed (ACO type) drain to ensure water does not come in - this is quite involved but door suppliers should have a standard detail on this that your builders can follow (attached a sketch so you can see what I mean - not for you to use as depends on the system / situation). 4) You may also need to get building regs approval for your renovations so there are heat losses to look into that can dictate the spec of the glass you need. The best supplier I found was Cantifix http://www.cantifix.co.uk/ - I dismissed them as the quote seemed too high but if I was doing it again I'd use them. They use Schuco doors (German) which are supposed to be the best - you may be able to find other companies that use the same system. Another company I like the look of is http://www.cedarbifoldcompany.com/ Note I have not tried either of them as I got cheap and nasty ones...Otherwise there are lots of other options so get a few quotes and compare. Also if you stick to standard sizes (particularly height) then you may get a cheaper solution. I seem to remember that heights above 250cm cost more when I got my quotes though this may have increased in the last few years. Good luck.

Inculcate - used in a couple of threads a while ago and I had to look it up.

For all you X Factor fans, you can buy T-shirts here: http://dailymash.shotdeadinthehead.com/product_view.aspx?pid=1036

Toptip - if your camera doesn't have a phone just mime...

The other day when I was reduced to positioning my bike diagonally in what was was left of the cycle box I saw another cyclist pull out a digital camera and take a photo of the car registration plate (and motorist) of a vehicle that was sat in the box across the ASL. I have no idea whether the evidence was being sent to anyone or whether it could be proved that the vehicle was stationary and the lights were red at the time, but it did surprise the motorist and was quite amusing. Presumably if all cyclists carried a camera phone and did this then the message would spread quite quickly. Maybe a good one to do in the safety of a crowd of cyclists rather than to a van full of burly blokes when alone.

Pretty sure Taper meant not cost effective to those procuring it. Clearly Pharma Cos will sell wherever there is a market. Let's not nitpick - the bigger point is the the lack of proper clinical comparison and the misleading missives that blur this fact. Saffron is spot on on this.

I haven't read the whole article, but the excerpt seems to relate to the population healthcare economy as a whole rather than the effect on individual patients. The main advantages cited are in relation to improved take-up rate, prevention of cherry-picking of some but not all of the vaccines, fewer appointments to miss etc. I see no clear comparison of the efficacy of a correctly administered combined vaccine versus the individual vaccine program (perhaps it is elsewhere in the article). The thing with vaccine programs is the need to balance the needs of the individual versus the population. It is classic game theory: every vaccine bears some risk and as long as every one else takes the vaccine then the disease won't spread so you don't need to, but if enough opt out then the disease may spread and so you are at risk if you don't take it. Anyway overall, I agree that utilitarianism should prevail and that, on balance, the MMR combination vaccine should be the one offered - people clearly can't be trusted to behave for the good of society when it comes to sticking pointy things in their children! As Curmudgeon notes this may not prove to be the best thing for all people but parents would have no way of knowing in advance and if there were adverse consequences would simply blame themsleves for the choice they made - another good reason to take this decision out of their hands. Of course if a parent has a child who reacts badly, then consideration should be given to allowing a different approach for future siblings.

Eat you say. Well blow me. This is all getting a bit mainstream. Must be time to invent a new stupidly named water/coffee/milk variant... Will check out Luca and BMC. Thanks all.

Not exactly high brow, but "Scott Pilgrim Vs the World" Inane. Different. Fun

OK, so in this instance the faith school does not even have the redeeming feature of getting good results. So whatever side of the FS fence you are on the school appears to be failing due to the demographic challenge placed upon it notwithstanding the Herculean efforts of certain saint-like(?) teachers. The title of this posting could have been "Shockingly Bad School" as the faith probably has nothing to do with it. Whilst the kids are busy terrorising teachers and eachother and skipping lessons they are no doubt missing out on the education and inculcation (I just love that word and all its derivatives) in equal measure.

Ooh - let's set up a "free school" and then we can incuclate our little angels to our hearts' content. We could hire the teacher from the school in Camberwell, though it probably wouldn't be gnarly enough...

Yes in the way that BUPA is discriminatory against poor people. I tell you what, while we're at it let's have faith based hospitals that are state funded, so to get any treatment a patient or his/her family needs to subscribe to a certain set of beliefs. As opposed to... members of the public (who have afterall funded all the hospitals) being able to choose freely from hospitals on the basis of proximity and speciality. You're right - it's not disciminatory at all, because you can just go to the Jedi hospital a mere 10 miles away where they treat your sort.. Children with religeous parents can and do choose between faith and non-faith schools based on which offers the best education. Parents who are not religeous get to choose between non-faith schools and the hypocrisy of faking it. Aside from faith schools not being fair on those they exclude, they are also unfair on those they include as they present a certain view on life based on the beliefs of the parents which the child has no say in. Struggling to see the upside for anyone.

Yep - it's an outrage that faith can be used as an exclusion criteria for state funded education. The Dawkins "Age of Reason - Faith School Menace" programme shown on TV recently was excellent. He managed to put some very cogent arguements across (and also managed to come across as a bit of a t055er as usual).

waynetta wrote: ______________ "A rescue crew will be going down one man at a time after each trapped miner comes up. " Er, am I being dim, but if at the end of all this we have 33 rescue workers at the bottom of a mine...

How about..... we take the emphasis slightly off taxing those with high incomes and refocus ever so gently on those that already have piles of loot? Someone earning ?1 - 200k is being taxed to b"ggery at the moment. Clearly they do OK, so no complaints, but there comes a point when it isn't really fair (as alluded to up the chain). Post tax and expenses that's a few 10's of K's but never going to amount to enough to buy a nice gaff in a nice bit of London (cue outrage - yes yes it's all relative). Why not tax wealth (IHT / Asset tax) rather than income. At an extreme IHT of 100% and no income tax. Everyone born equal. Old gits take a punt on their longevity and at some point sp*nk all their remaining cashish stimulating the economy. Most expensive house in country is total amount earnable by 1 person in a lifetime. 100th best house... 1000th best house... So house prices become sensible, everyone has equal opportunity, old people drive the economy rather than burdening it. OK the extreme is clearly a bit ridiculous, but switching the emphasis a little would let the current crop of earners have a fair shot at changing their station, rather than the current system which keeps the rich rich and the poor poor. Whether the earners deserve their income due to skill, effort and risk-taking or not in absolute terms, they certainly apply more skill, risk-taking and effort in relative terms when compared to someone who was given a pile of wonga or has a huge property asset because they were lucky enough to buy a house at the right time. Harrumph..

prophylactic

I've not posted much so here goes I'll put on my bullet proof jacket and get ready... There is no perfect system. There are always anomolies. When I was at Uni, my parents were still working (not earning a great deal) so I only got a small grant. One of my best mates had parents who had retired. They were minted and so was he, but he got a full grant (and a wodge of notes everytime his parents came down to visit). Should that have been taken into account? On child benefit, what about low income families where the child has a particularly generous uncle, godfather etc etc. Surely it should be about need - how do we make it fair? You can't. So pragmatically you make it as fair as you can but also keep it as straightforward as possible - our tax system is stupidly complex enough as it is. Under the old system it was frankly ridiculous that families with large incomes (e.g. over ?88k) could claim child benefit. So under the new approach: *Families earning less than ?44k all DO get child benefit - nobody is arguing with that *Families earning over ?88k all DO NOT get child benefit - again sounds pretty sensible *Families earning between ?44k and 88k MAY OR MAY NOT get benefit depending on how the income is split across 2 earners - this anomoly / inequality is what people are flapping about. Think of it as the intention being that NO families earning above ?44k should really get benefit, but a free upside is being given to a limited group of people with individual incomes below ?44k and combined incomes above (who no doubt have a higher childcare cost in any case). Given the cost of identifying the individuals (earning less than ?44k but earning more than ?44k when combined with partner) exceeds the saving in CB once you've found them - would anyone really suggest implementing a very complicated and costly system to clamp down on this group? Most of the complaints seem to be the injustice of one group of people seeming to do better than another - that's just life I'm afraid. The important question is whether a family income of ?44k is sufficient to be able to cope without CB (probably about right - must be enough to raise a child, nobody said it would be fun) rather than being miffed / jealous that others seem to have better luck. Reminds me of the parable of the workers in the vineyard from my Sunday School Days.(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_Workers_in_the_Vineyard) I'm not religeous but it makes the point. I also don't have any kids so this probably isn't really any of my business...

Yeah - eventually. Some way to go yet I think though. Whilst I hate to credit Antipodean's with anything (at all) I was in Sydney last year and the FW's were awesome. I think my question was code for, where do I get a really nice coffee that isn't some sort of silly milkshake.

So returning to the matter in hand - where in ED can I get a decent Flat White?