Michael Palaeologus

Marches in to loud martial music wearing a Mao suit, scarily large glasses, stack-shoes and a brushed and gelled up hair do. Afternoon Comrades. Anybody up for a bit of dialectic or is there any vodka? Is there any hay for party Chair-person Madame Comrade Dobbin the lactating-in-a-collective-way Donkey? If not, you are all in the gulag for re-education.

You can recycle. They remove the widgets painlessly and send them to a widget haven for their retirement. Same as they do with the Youngs brewery cart horses, except smaller.

Forest of Dean - doing the Harry Potter tour (for those of you reading the current book)

Probably slumming it in a tent.

Love it! Marmite is great in veggie food. It doesnt make things "meaty" but does give a great bite. A personal winter veggie fave is potato and mushroom pie - flavoured with marmite and parsley.

PARTYPARTYPARTYPARTYPARTY!! Will there be jelly and ice-cream and hundreds and thousands? and a cake? Could the EDWI make a special EDF Birthday came?

I believe she and the clan are on hols in .... the South West. Some interesting tales on DM's return I think.

"Hey Bubba - fancy some road-kill?"

I get about a 25% reduction for being on my tod. A 50% reduction would be nice.

Harumph! Grounded at the moment. I posted from W1 the other day - does that count? Nothing very far flung planned at the moment - Tallinn kicks off again in late September.

I got entranced by The Magus - read it on a hot island beach. Havent read it since because it wouldnt be as good the second time around.

I live on my own and pay a discounted rate - but not 50% of that paid by couples. As I make limited use of some council services and no use of others (education for instance) why should I pay the full amount? I am already subsiding the fecund.

I understand that the Peckham Boots site is to be taken over by an evangelical church so that the healing continues.

Plough through Peter Ackroyds' book "London the Biography" - this debate has been going on for 2000 years or more.

It is worth going in just to gaze at the lovely Rebecca. Which I did regularly until the restraining order.

I dont see an influx of Africans as a bad thing. If there was an outflux of the working class white-people it was because they didnt want to live in Peckham, if they had satyed then the new populations would have gone elsewhere. The outflow of the white working class left empty and cheap housing that the immigrant population could afford. These "dirty" shops are just different, they are not Sainsbury's or Tescos admittedly, but then why should they be? There is no need to be sniffy about difference and diversity. The British isles has always been subject to immigration and every wave of immigrants has generared a moral panic amongst the indigenous population that have forgotten that they were at some point immigrants themselves (whether Vikings, Angles, Saxons, Romans (of all colours), Huguenots, Jews, West Indians, Ugandan Asians, Asians, Vietnamese, Africans, etc). I am quite happy in my nice middle class flat in middle class East Dulwich. I have no wish to live in Peckham. I am an atheist and have no wish to go to evangelical churches. BUT I dont resent the presence of the new populations of Peckham and the fact that demographic has changed is simply a sign of the times. In 50 years time it will have changed again.

Peckham has changed significantly in the close to 20 years that I have been around. It was diverse in population then, but the highest profile group was the Vietnamese, primary immigrants who were Boat-People (remember them?). Peckham high street was on its *rse with so many empty shops and market stalls. 20 years on we have a vibrant Peckham, it has big social problems, but there are few empty shops. The African, Vietnamese and Asian shops and market stalls are fascinating - if you take time to wander around them. It is ironic that some feel that the big high street chains NOT being Peckham is a problem. In Peckam we have a place packed full of small shops run by Entrepreneurs that would go out of business if the big chains arrivd. God knows (quite literally) how many churches there are in Peckham and these bind and support significant chunks of the population. Now the Vietnamese are on their 2nd generation. They will drift away from Peckham as they become more affluent; because that what immigrants do and have done for thousands of years. You arrive and settle with your people because that is what feels safe, you will be in a dwn at heel area because that is what is cheap, life is difficult, but slowly you make money, your kids grow up as Britons and over the generations you slowly drift away from your starting point. Then the next wave of immigrants come in and off we go again. That is not to say that there will be huge challenges and problems and some take longer than others to fully find their place. The Africans have now come in and they have been the stimulus for eonomic regeneration in Peckham. It all looks very different and it has that "edge" that is apparently attractive to some.

Deep frying or poaching perhaps? You could use lobster recipes as a starting point.

Are we talking DC or AC here? These things matter.

Nord bones Mockney? Nordic bones perhaps, those of Danish piggies or Finnish reindeer?

I spent yesterday afternoon and evening on the M4. It was, interesting. I have seen flooding in Bangkok and this was similar.

The article tell us that the Seacow will be doing deliveries from September. More scooters zooming around then

Got mine at Sainbos this morning

Too wet! I do Farnborough and really want to get to Fairford one year. I was on holiday in the South of France a few years ago and was treated to regular ad-hoc displays by the then very new and under test Rafale.

It does stink of good old fashioned class warfare/jealousy. These Mums with their ?500 pushchairs - where are they surposed to go? If people want to spend their money why shouldnt they? This is ust tedious whining about harping back to a class versus class battle that was only ever recognised by pensioned off lefties who are about as relevant today as Arthur Scargill and Watneys Red Barrel.