uncleglen

Horrendous. There was a tv programme made in the last couple of years where a teenaged girl went out to an African country because she had heard that her cousin was told the same thing and ostracized by the family and community. And this http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/scandal-of-the-children-killed-for-witchcraft-1003968.html and an antidote http://www.trustforlondon.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Safeguarding-final-report.pdf

Some streets have massive communal bins at the end of the road in West London. The 'houses' that have more than 3 bins are converted into flats- it can only get worse!

The only recent examples of proper slavery has been the abuse of women in the sex 'industry'

The only time I challenged an planning permission I discovered that it was submitted by a property developer from South West London...admittedly owner/occupiers would extend if they need to , but actually how many of these planning applications for extensions are distant property developers trying to divide the houses up into flats I wonder?

Scholarships for a State School....that's one way of skewing the intake I suppose

most of the extensions I've seen are carbuncles. Also, I dread to think what it's done to the air quality around here, added to the 20mph limit- extensions cut down the garden areas as well

If they implement it does that mean employing more traffic enforcement vehicles? ffs

Yes, I've used BT, Sky and went back to Virgin and have had no problems except once when vandals ripped the cables out of the box- but it was up again in a day.

This type of vandalism has happened to my car in the last five years, after living in ED for 18 years. I don't think there is a solution- unless you catch someone red-handed.

The lack of maths skills in the country is down to the obsession with literacy- where the 'literati' are feted . It is interesting to note , as a teacher, that people are very quick to admit that they are 'no good at maths', and parents say their child is 'no good at maths' because they themselves are 'no good at maths', but will do everything in their power to hide the fact that they cannot read well. This means that people who are 'numeracy illiterate', i.e. those who cannot perform percentages and decimals, are at the mercy of those who can. When teaching standard form I always used the example of the paediatrician who made a mistake with standard form and overdosed and killed a baby..... Being able to quote Shakespeare was never a matter of life and death.

I do not read or buy tabloids- never have done- never will do-newspapers are so full of yesterday's news. I happened to read it online by accident fyi Jezza

I read this morning that this piece of self-indulgent twattery is costing the LICENCE PAYER i.e us ?100,000 for goodness' sake BBC (aren't a lot of them Oxbridge 'educated'?)

Not to mention the COST- when they are always carping on about 'government cut backs'.

Yes it is widely abused- the person near me has a very elderly relative who NEVER goes out but there is a space outside their house.

I had a friend from there- he was clever and funny....but I knew him in Brighton

I'm surprised to see my old tutor Prof Dylan Wiliam saying 'life without levels' when, as far as maths and science is concerned , he and his peers at King's defined them- referring to cognitive development. When I was training I attended the statutory 2 week placement in a primary school not a million miles away from ED. The class I was assigned was year 5 and the classroom teacher was head of special needs. I was shocked at the amount of time spent wasted...for example I do not think a whole afternoon spent copying a painting by an impressionist is useful. I was asked to help a boy read from the Red box and I went and picked up a book and he refused the book- opting for another one. He proceeded to 'read' the book at speed and 'misread' several words. When I pointed at a word and asked him to read it in isolation he had no idea what it was- I could see his eyes looking at the pictures and it was obvious he had memorised the text after he had been told what it said. Reading? You must be joking...and moving on to secondary school how on earth can this be preparation for textbooks. But it explained a lot. They had one maths lesson by a specialist once a week...absolute joke. And the only nod to science in the room was a book of Victorian glassware!! When I started my first job the whole department had to fill in a form and on it was a question asking the teacher what they were aiming for in their job. My immediate line manager wrote 'to be headteacher'- kind of summed it all up really

I can't believe they actually closed the road for an unadulterated piece of cr*p like that....

That school friends were nurtured- having them over for tea, meeting up in the holidays for days out...

Cats are not allowed out in New York and because they have a tendency attack anything that moves, many of them have to be de-clawed

I don't know about anyone else but when my kids were that age they had playmates and friends from school because the children in the rest of the family were much younger.

You may find some advice here: Leaseholders Advisory Service Leasehold Valuation Tribunal?

Probably because everyone you mix with talks about sex all the time and you have no contribution to make?

A nurse friend of mine has been waiting for 6 months for a straightforward operation which will enable her to get back to work. She has been virtually bed-ridden since Xmas.......the whole system is in meltdown

There would be no point in chasing mopeds because the scrotes would go through bollards into places where the cops can't drive anyway. There was a news story a couple of weeks ago where 2 of them on a moped actually mounted the pavement and took 2 phones from people within 50 yards of each other- I think it was in Kentish Town. The perps don't seem to care whether they kill pedestrians obviously....

He looks about as Irish as Bin Laden....