Jeremy

Having grown up in an area does not, unfortunately, entitle you to live there many years later as an adult.

Sorry I really don't believe that every passenger on the train finds a single guy eating a pasty for five minutes "disgusting". Annoying, at a push. I think it's a personal bugbear for you and a few others. It's not illegal - in fact the large number of fast food outlets at stations would seem to suggest that it's actually encouraged. Perhaps you could write to Southern suggesting food-free carriages?

Actually not convinced the changes in the last 8 years have been that significant. The changes in the previous 8 years were much more noticable.

Yeah it was pretty gritty in 2006. You couldn't find a good baby reiki practitioner for love nor money. And none of the cafes even knew whay a babyccino was... can you imagine that?

I would suggest that eating on a train causes only mild annoyance, and hence some perpetrators will feel it is justifiable if they would otherwise struggle to fit in a meal. I don't believe anyone would feel equally inconvenienced by someone urinating in a train vs eating a big mac.

I guess my thoughts are similar to James. It's great that we have independent shops in ED (also in Peckham, Forest Hill, Herne Hill, etc) but they should (and often do) differentiate themselves from chains by offering something different, perhaps in terms of service, quality, range, atmosphere, or even location. Customers using a business out of loyalty/charity are IMO misguided.

Wonder why the union couldn't organise a strike across all Picturehouse (or even all Cineworld) cinemas, rather than just this one?

Agreed. Although that one by the station really isn't very good. Love this one though:

Lowlander Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Toilet depends, on a big job ... I'd expect them to source their own. Chortle

Hope you're prepared for a deluge of mails asking for your builder's details, ITATM...

In my experience, for bigger jobs where they might be there for several days, they'll generally help themselves to tea/milk/biscuits/squash/etc. To be honest it doesn't bother me as long as they're reasonably tidy. The last lot of guys I had in helped themselves to my tools on a daily basis. Loads of stuff went missing - probably over ?100 worth. That really did piss me off..

Parkdrive Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Why, just why? Hungry

You could hear a neighbour over the train tracks from the DKH Estate (presumably coming from of the new-build places)?? Must have been loud! Dog Kennel Hill Estate is not the same as Champion Hill though...

I think the magazines are churned out in different areas with 90% identical content, but with a load of local estate agent adverts.

OK, maybe try 3m in Chelsea and 1.5m in Wandsworth! Point remains. Why buy a 500K house in Hither Green when you can have a house in Dartford for 250K?

danrees Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Same house in East Dulwich would be ?800k today. Is it really worth it? You might as well say "why pay 2 million for a house in Chelsea when Wandsworth is half the price"? Of course ED is not Chelsea... but when comparing an area to another which is a bit more central, smarter, more shops/restaurants/bars, etc, there's always going to be a large price difference. Some people would rather compromise location for more space, others would rather stay in a flat and live in their preferred area. Horses for courses.

Anything which cheers up Foxy has to be a good thing!

Mainly just accounts of groups of kids loitering, and a general "dodgy" vibe. There was a recent post on here from a cyclist who was attacked along there, not sure how common this kind of thing really is. Champion Hill itself is a v nice road which I've walked through a lot, at all times of day and night. Never had any problems.

The Champion Hill/Denmark Hill area is absolutely fine (including the Fox On The Hill - not dodgy in the slightest), but the Greendale footpath has a bad reputation.

I don't see why they couldn't half the floorspace, reduce their rent, and still shift almost as much stuff (the deli counter seems to be their... er.. bread and butter). People complain about the service, but I like the shop. It was one of the original trailblazers, along with Franklins, Cheeseblock, Blue Mountain, etc. ED would be worse off if these guys hadn't set up shop years ago.

Fair summary Penguin. For me it just boils down to - you weren't there, you don't know the OP. You don't know.

Penguin, I think you've slightly missed the point here. Nobody was warning anybody to be wary of young black men on bikes (I don't think I would defend something like that). The OP was trying to find out if someone matching this description had done the same thing in the same area on the same night. If someone finds a person suspicious because of their ethnicity then you'd be right to pull them up on it, but it's a bit of a leap to accuse someone of this.

Neither "clearly up to no good", nor "completely innocuous". I would say "fairly suspicious". I can understand the OP wanting to check out whether the same thing had happened to others that night. That is all. I'm sure people sometimes do, sadly, make judgements based on race. But it is your declaration that a) the guy in question was not acting suspiciously and b) this clearly makes the OP racist which I find absurd.

My thoughts exactly DB. If it were effectively two vacant shops plus a one bed flat, it would surely be a lot more expensive.

We weren't there, we didn't see the body language of the kid as he took off. To claim that the event was categorically not suspicious, and therefore a racist reaction, is completely absurd and totally unfair. Just pointless posturing.