bawdy-nan

If you se a boris bike "mis-behaving" you can report it - they're all registered and logged.

Isn't this story more about ghastly litigious nature of the US than the dangers of riding on pavements. O course chidlren shouldn't ride straight into veryold ladies but should they be sued for an accident? In any case, this is less about the bike problem and more about the fact that the lady was knocked over - could have been done by a running child, or dog,or whatever. I'm not saying that cycling on pavements should always be allowed but this isn't that helpful an intervention in the debate. Around here it would be great to see more children facilitated to ride on the roads but that requires better road provision I think - slower traffic (20 mile an hour only zones extended throughout ED residential areas), proper cycle paths wherever possible (ideally linking all schools to discourage car school run clogging) and ideally some road crossing facilities.

crikey - if it is your dog I'd really like you to do something about it - I'm at the plough end and I have say the barking dog is intensely and sustainedly annoying

I think we met them yesterday - they were very barky but actually very sweet when theowner introduced them to us cate Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > There is an irresponsible female owner of three > schnauzers in Dulwich Park. Her dogs are always > off the lead, and not under control. They are > always rushing up to other dogs and people, > howling and barking. The other day she was > sitting in the cafe area while her dogs were > running around loose. They kept approaching other > dogs entering the cafe area and barking at them. > Her dogs come haring over to me and my dog and > surround us while barking. Whenever I have said > something to her, she just says Oh > sorry........she seems to have no concept that > three dogs are a pack and she needs to keep them > under control. I only posted this to vent really. > This kind of person also gives dog owners a bad > name.

I once asked a grown -up friend "did you manage?" on their return from the loo

anyone find one in dulwich park today ...? very sad boy mourning the loss of "duckie" and hoding me to ransom with biscuit requests

I have the green man ingrained in my soul so much that I find myself reprimanding colleagues for not adhering to his beamy instruction when stepping out with them at lunchtime ....

This seems to be a policy being applied across a number of schools and in the case of some (Charter, for example) quite rigidly and rather secretively. I assume it is to give the school a better chance of meeting statistical proof that they're not "failing" - ie they get a good number of children passing at grade c or above. In my opinion I think its utterly scandalous and limits the chances and opportunities of children at a very young age - putting the needs of the school way before that of the children. As far as I understand it schools tend to stream a percentage of the year group as top performers and allow only them to take the higher papers. If you're in the top 60 (or whatever it is) you get to take O level equivalents. I simply don't buy that only 60 people in a year group are capable of attaining higher grades and ought to be streamed out of higher education at the age of 14. I'd be very interested to see what the breakdown of social groups and family incomes were in each of these streams. Schools doing this, and the teachers who support it, should be utterly ashamed of themselves. Oh, and I think that GCSE grades are tremendously important and will continue to be so especially as higher education gets cut and fees rise. Access to any kind of financial support through bursaries etc is bound to be fierce and as A level attainment keeps improving anything that differentiates you in a crowded market is worth striving for.

camberwell70 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Did this really happen? 'attack us for no reason', > 'monster', 'beastie', 'spiked collar', 'scars on > neck' > Mmm, just curious. ('along the carriage way...') > Ciao I don't know about the original post but I can assure yo that the incident that happened to me and my little boy was real and the dog, indeed, had a huge spikey collar - this was one of the things that my son talked about a lot afterwards. He thought it was supposed to look scary and I;m pretty sure he was right.

Hello - really sorry to hear what happened to you and glad you're ok. I think this might be the same dog that terrified the life out of me and my 5 year old a few weeks ago. We were sitting down at the edge of the park when this dog came running over to us (black, spiky collar). We're not usually frightened by dogs but this was really scary - it crouched and started growling and really looked as if it might go for us. The owner was unconcerned (and really aggressive and rude - though I was too, I have to say). The dog was totally out of control and I think we were very lucky not to have been attacked. We were really fortunate too in that a couple of friendly dog owners came over to us to chat and my little boy was able to see that not all dogs and dog owners utterly terrifying. I'm not sure what coule be done about this. I'd hate to see all dogs on leads in the park.

Unless I;m having a huge clearout I never ever fill my gree bin and its a rare week when I use more than one black bin bag. I've two kids and we mostly shop at supermarkets so have plenty of packaging. WE do have a lot of recycling and a really big factor is that I compost all non-cooked and meat food waste...I'm happy about two week collection and if I had food waste collection too that'd be even better.

permanently? not according to the letters sent to parents

keep it small (I'd reckon on no more than 5 or 6 friends) and keep it simple and keep it short (hour and a half)- buy a set of face paints, play musical bumps, pin the tail on the donkey, get them to dance like different animals, wrap each other up in loo roll like mummies, pass the parcel, keep some balloons in the air - tea with very small things on plates, birthday cake party bags - hometime then MASSIVE glass of wine

do you mean a dietician?

but in hot pursuit of the magic percentage students getting 5 a-c grades I understand that charter is severely limiting the number of pupils in an intake who can take any more than that number which means better stats overall on the 5 gcse measure but children having their life chances severely restricted at 13. very poor chance of university place with a measly 5 gcse's.

there was a house (at least I think it was a house) fire on stradella road (near to where it jopins half moon lane) at about 9.15 - was turned back on my bike by police

We .'ve used Uomo on lordship lane (near the fabric shop) or the old lady type hairdressers at teh top near the library - both absolutely fine and both about 12 quid I think

yikes - just attempted to load the car with stuff for camping trip with kids tomorrow to discover my car won't start... argh argh triple argh. It look like its the battery as the headlights seem to dim. Haven't used the car for a couple of weeks. Don't have roadside assistance (forgot to renew it when I changed car insurance a coupel of months ago)or any clue about what to do. Is there such a thing as a mobile mechanic? Anyone got any ideas about what I can do. Supposed to be driving to yorkshire tomorrow for fabulous forest schools camp ... wonder if I need to hire a car instead - damn it damn it damn it boo hoo

sorry not to reply - yes, they are at weekends. The website says there is a waiting list but its probably worth calling them up if you're interested. I found them to be a mix of utterly impossible and totally helpful - ie things not quite being what they say they are: they said it was imperative that you call on the day courses open / there's a waiting list when actucally they didn\t answer the phone but several days later there seemed to be places. Which is to say I think it is probably worth a phone call.

Why not drink the alcohol at Franklins? - It seems perfectly reasonably priced to me - in the same way as any restaurant is "reasonably" priced. I used to love Franklins when it did its "special" lunch menus. So cheap and part of the charm was the lack of choice. I loved trying new things and I would NEVER have eaten lamb's tongue by choice which is the most choice and tender morsel I've ever devoured (my daughter enjoyed it too for her 2nd birthday treat).

Jags do swimming lessons and are brilliant. You don't have to be a member to sign up. My two were at ED pool until just before it closed and I stopped them from going because they didn't seme to be making any progress at all. We had one term of a superb teacher that got one of them swimming and then it was to back to "walking backwards in the water"... My eldest did a school terms worth of swimming lessons (through her primary school) with the Jags teachers and made excellent progress (ie , any) so I sogned them up after that. After a term the eldest os a much stronger, confident simmer and the youngest, though not yet swimming independently, is almost there and really keen to be in the water. In fatc, whenever we enter a pool now he does the swimmimg lesson drills he's learned to love.

I LOVE Franklins with every inch of my being

Wed managed without childcare (paid for or otherwise) for the first 2 years after my daughter was born. We were both self-employed and it invo;lved a lot of very earlier starts, late nights, breastfeeding on buses, furious pumping of breastmilk, emailing one handed at the office while holding the baby. It was a bit of a nightmare and I wouldn't say it felt very highflying at all.

There's an emergency childcare service but its HORRIFICALLY expensive http://www.emergencychildcare.co.uk/index/index.php Is it niot possible to take some time off? You're entitled to that if your childcare breaks down 9i think its called carer's leave). I know this isn't always looked upon kindly by employers. You might also find a childminder witha gap that day if their charges are off on holiday 9 its the school holidays then... Good luck with sorting something out

also the last set of figures issued by the governers showed that church places were under-applied for - rather putting paid to the idea that local parents are getting on their knees to avoid the fees (ooh I love Rev).