Nero

'Nothing to Envy' by Barbara Demick is a Samuel Johnson winner and a great read, chronicling the lives of several North Koreans who managed to defect to the South. It puts a human face on a largely faceless country.

Just use your dirty washing up water to water them, as well as alerting the council's tree dept. 7525 2000

On two occasions but over a couple of weeks I have given the correct money (?1.50 for an egg sarny - great value BTW) to a checkout person (at Pret both times) and seen the figures ?18.50 on the till when it is rung in, as if I have given a ?20 note. Does this suggest that the checkout person is pulling a fast one on the shop? Both times I knew that the person before me had purchased more than something costing ?1.50. (Yeah, I know - both the other customers before me could have paid for something costing ?31.50 with a ?50 but that is not very likely.)

Good for you! Hopefully J Barber will see this and think about getting the counci's litter pickers out there in greater force on sunny days and/or installing more bins, employing enforcers to ticket those who drop and leave their rubbish behind.

It's one of the most popular stories right now (Sunday 4th July, 08.20)

Since the muriel has been up, I've seen two new examples of tagging within two minutes' walk of it. One is on Goodrich Road, on the side of a house near the lock up garages, just before Barry Road and the other is on the wall of Summerhill school. I'll report both to the council on Monday.

15-year-old boy has been stabbed to death near a school in West Norwood, south London - Sky News http://bit.ly/cEFyb9 - BBC

A while back I asked James Barber to get the council street cleaners to put the - flimsy - bags of rubbish they collect on top of the bins rather than alongside them. They have started to do that, and the result is no shredded bags with refuse all over the streets. Imagine if this was replicated borough, city and country wide. I don't mind the foxes but do mind it when people get all blunderbuss on them. Hopefully, when people no longer see the contents of rubbish bins all over the place then they might not be so anti-volp.

Tulip, Pleas tell us more about how one gets involved with any surgery's patient committee. I - and hopefully many others - would like to get involved and put our views forward. For the record, I think that DMC is doing OK - 7/10 - but that missed appointments and a certain lacksadaisical attitude as regards consultant appointments, test results etc, raise their heads. Also for the record, you sound rather parti pris, a little too knowledgeable about current NHS practice to be a non-insider. Should that be the case, I urge you to drop your professional mantle and see it from the side of us, the users. We don't want to know about the latest trends and strategies; we just want to be afforded good, timely and efficient treatment.

If you can keep Rye Lane free of illegally parked traffic, which impedes many hundreds of bus passengers every hour, then you will be doing a good job. Nobody seems to ticket the big lorries and white vans that offload to businesses in Peckham, whereas in SE22 you can get ticketed just as soon as you are one minute out of time.

Mr P I live right opposite Goodrich school and I don't think a zebra is needed. The road already has zigzags (which are mainly, tho' not always respected), safety barriers, flashing lights a bit down the road to denote a school area, and a widening of the pavement at the crossing point. Only an effort to get fewer parents using their cars and parking illegally will go towards the prevention of any accident (of which I have heard of 0 in my ten years here).

MM, all very well reigniting the debate, if there is one (to me it seems there isn't - DMC was being inflexible and should have seen you, no question) - but you would do much better in writing a letter to the DMC, copying it to Tessa Jowell and the relevant NHS department that deals with GP complaints. Banging on about on here really won't do anything.

Have to agree with our new ex-HH arrival that that little strip before the lights is delightful. Lombok beats any Thai we have in SE22 and the Spanish tapas place is top-hole in terms of food, service and atmosphere. If only the Three Monkeys were to come back! The Provencal (?) place on the corner is great for unfussy but good nosh. There's nowhere like any of those in the LL area, which is dominated by pubs and curry houses - mostly good, I add.

Interestingly and coincidentally, two posters for the circus that were tied to railings outside Goodrich School have been taken down. Unless the circus in question has suddenly become very polite, I reckon the council have removed them (or someone who has taken against them.)

Seconded. Admin, take note! The people are speaking!

I don't mind the posters themselves but do object to their being left to rot and peel instead of being removed. However, I also object to the council not removing those very visible yellow, laminated A4 sheets they use to notify people of construction plans. Even after raising it with the man whose name appears on the bottom of most of them who told me that the ocuncil would come and remove them after the consultation period (usually three weeks) they remain. If they cheese you off, please rip them down (after the three week consultation period) and send them back to the department.

Agree that taking the whole post off is draconian. By all means censor the offensive language, but not the rest of the thread which was measured and worthwhile.

! Good for you for asking the offender to stop. I think it is peculiar and rather grotty.

Great story! Ring the RSPCA and tell The Sun! (Lots of scope for tortoise/train speed comparisons etc)

The 12 can get very dirty after its long, slow trek from Oxford Circus. Things start getting grubby at Elephant, especially when schoolkids get on. There's little you can do apart from ask the least murderous-looking chicken-bone/satsuma-peel droppers to not do what they do so blithely, and it's not worth the hassle to stick up for common civility - and I say that as someone who tries to shame people into doing the right thing on public transport despite the inherent hazards.

The zebra should be tuned into to a pelican. Cars and bikes race down Barry and often their drivers ooze resentment at having to stop for pesky - and lawful - pedestrians.

She's a bloody fraud and arch self-promoter, using her gender and skin colour to eke out a 'special' place in the Labour hierarchy when in reality she is very much part of the establishment (Vis her very well paid gig on BBC2/Cambridge background). To hear her you would think she is the only person ever overcome a class/race disability. Loathsome.

All in all, I am broadly supportive of the DMC. It's local, open decent hours, has good nurses, but it fails by having a poor phone-answering response and sufers from general lacksadaiscalness - lost forms, wrong information etc. It feels like it is just that bit too big to be a local doctor's surgery, and instead comes over as a bit of a factory. Also, each time I have been the number of no-shows was high, and I'd like them to clamp down on those people rather than anyone who is five minutes late. I get the feeling it is eyeing expansion whilst resting on its laurels - a bad combination.

People getting off the front of the bus pisses me off. We have a system that has worked well for scores of years, but some people just want to be different. If you have a very bulky item with you and it makes sense to hang around the front to keep it safe, then fair enough, getting off at the front is reasonable, but otherwise....Grrrr!

It is a political issue because politics is all, EDMummy. I don't care whether it is Labour, Con, LibDem council that is doing (or not doing) the work - if the money I spend on taxes isn't, in my opinion, being well spent, then I will complain, regardless of my politial affiliation. If it were not public money things would have been a lot different, I can safely wager.