Pierre

There's now a sign in the window saying they're closed for refurbishment; I didn't see the opening date but I did see that they'd be re-open "with bells on" (see what they did there...)

Nice pub. Bit smokey, but July will change all that. FWIW I like sitting in the front garden area and it's a Young's pub so the ales are decent.

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I'm listening to the mad bloke outside whistling a lot and trying to direct traffic from the pavement... :/

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nah, voting's what you do on a Saturday evening, sat in front of the TV with your mobile in your hand, innit? ;)

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...self appointed elite thought they might decide things for everyone.

we bow to your eliteness, MattC. I'm off to drive down the pavement at 40 while talking on my mobile phone. It's fine as long as I don't hurt anyone, and it makes me feel cool and important.

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Black Books, on Wikipedia.

Sorry.

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I'm not sure what their delivery service is like, we live close enough to drop in and pick the food up, but Gold Lee is well worth a try. Their crispy fried squid with salt and chilli is amazing, melts in the mouth.

42 East Dulwich Road, 020 7732 1247

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I'm sure that driving my car along an empty pavement is literally and metaphorically not going to kill anyone. I could try and justify it to myself, claiming I'm scared of the roads and that I believe I'm doing the right thing. I could tell everyone that I'm being responsible. I could proclaim that somewhere in the world it's legal. I could sound very open minded and say that "others may have different views".

I would still be breaking the law.

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Sorry, just thought I'd bounce this one - what was the school originally called? For whom was it built? It has stones marked "boys" and "girls" so I asssume it has a long history as a school building. As someone who went to an old school like that one, I'm intrigued how such a treasured building could end up in such disregarded disrepair.

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Townleygreen, I was neither speaking to nor listening to you.

You wrote: "Frankly in many areas the roads are just too dangerous to cycle on."

Then don't cycle.

It is illegal, inconsiderate, arrogant and stupid to ride on the pavement. You wouldn't even countenance an argument that it would make sense to drive a car on the pavement in order to avoid the "dangerous roads", so don't try and justify it if you're on a bike.

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I can't see any excuse for cycling on the pavement in East Dulwich, and certainly no legally defensible reason.*

The roads aren't especially safe, but that's no reason to use the pavement. You wouldn't get away with driving a car on the pavement, or riding a motorbike, with the same excuse. As a keen cyclist I think there are few things more responsible for giving us cyclists a bad image than selfish idiots riding on pavements or jumping lights, thinking that they can use weak mumblings about "safety" as an excuse for inconsiderately hindering and endangering other road (or pavement) users.

Rant over...

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* I must admit I cycle across the small section of pavement by Peckham Pulse to get to the crossing, but it's very wide and I do it because they put in a cycle route and a cycle crossing and forgot to make any sign that cyclists needed to get between the two.

Do you know what it was called? There doesn't appear to be any kind of sign outside the school, and because the road it's on is called Peckham Rye itself, Google is somewhat evasive on finding useful results...

perhaps they should rename it "Black Books" then, by the sound of the service. ;)

I must have run past it a hundred times, yet it doesn't seem to have any name. It's a big school building, boarded up, with an area next to it covered in concrete lumps behind wire fencing. The roof of the school looks like it's fallen in, yet the rest of it seems in relatively good repair.

What's its story?