Siduhe

The crows wake me up, running about on the flat roof above our bedroom every morning. You don't know fear until you open the back bathroom door and there, two feet from your face, is a crow - squawking on the railing. I say you don't know fear but s/he looked pretty frightened as well as s/he flew away trailing a trail of crow poo. This at 6 am, which was nice.

What *Bob* said. One other option to think about is stepped commission. So 1% if the agent sells at asking price, 1.25% if they sell at asking +15k and so on. We did this recently on our sale and it turned out pretty well. You need to work out your sums to check that the deal is enough to incentivise the agent and that you as seller don't pay over the odds if the agent produces a really good buyer, but also that it doesn't mean that the agent prices your property entirely outside the range of people who are most likely to follow through to exchange and completion. We didn't accept the highest offer made for that very reason. As a (recent) buyer in the ED area, I would certainly consider selling with Roy Brooks, who seemed significantly more straighforward to deal with than some other agents.

Agreed on the breadmaker option. We have a mid-range Panasonic which does the job v.well - there can be a bit of trial and error involved for anything other than a standard white loaf, but ours gets used regularly to make bagel dough and loaves of brioche.

I think one needs to draw a distinction between the leadership of the Council and the day to day services the Council offers. I'm sure Southwark have their moments, but having recently moved home, I found them to be surprisingly good. When they said they were going to deliver recycling boxes and a wheelie bin, they turned up. When we had a problem with our next door neigbour's tree growing down and blocking the pavement (and next door neighbour declined to do anything about it) I phoned up for some advice - they came the very next day and cut the tree back on the pavement side so people can use the footpath again. No connection to the Council by the way. The Berkeley Homes development at Tower Bridge being discussed on another forum is quite a different story and I have some sympathy for any council which tries to oppose a development in similar circumstances to that one. Developers have significant funds to throw at legal action and Berkeley have made very clear they are going to fight this one tooth and nail, including starting work on their own part of the site in circumstances where it's far from clear that they have permission to do that. If the Standards Board report earlier this year is anything to go by other local councils have their own share of problems - some allegedly far worse than those mentioned in the Mirror.

macroban Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > > In Boston the rule is that you can't smoke while > standing still, so pavement smokers from pubs have > to walk round the block while fagging it. > > I had a look at www.cityofboston.gov to find the > wording of the City Ordinance to see the possible > effect if similar legislation was applied to East > Dulwich. > > I couldn't find anything. > > Is this for real or an urban myth? Can't speak for Boston, but there are a few places in Southern California which have "outdoor smoking bans" including Burbank and Santa Monica. The ordinance says something like you must be at least at least [20] feet away from any "path of travel, door or place where people congregate" and if you are asked to put your cigarette out by someone within [20] feet you must either do so or move on - hence the only real solution if you're in a built up area is to keep moving and stay off the main streets.

"Upper East Side" - brilliant, must remember that...and yup, we're pretty happy on the ED / Forest Hill border. Discovered Dulwich / Sydenham Hill Wood last weekend almost by accident and had a very pleasant ramble around. Sorry if this is OT but I couldn't work out if it follows an old railway or tram line, or just the line of a stream? I'm guessing railway from the large tunnel at the Sydenham end. Woods

Jeremy Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > > As Serendipity said, a lot of places were > overvalued, and some sellers/agents/developers > have really been taking the p!ss with their asking > prices. Couldn't agree more. We went to see DKH towards the end of the build, really liked it, but when we started to discuss prices with the agent the following week, we were told they'd gone up by between 30k and 80k (depending on the size of the flat). No real explanation given even when we pressed the agent with prices achieved on other similar sites in and around SE London. We formed a view that the developers had a totally unrealistic expectation of what they could achieve on that site, and started looking elsewhere (successfully - though at the other end of Lordship Lane). Interesting to see the DKH prices appear to have come down to pretty much the original level now.

Keef Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Just a thought, you're not up the top of Lordship > Lane towards Sydenham Hill and Hornimans are you. > There's a real reception problem there! What he said: Orange (and T-mobile) reception can be very patchy in the streets around the Horniman. I have no problem getting an Orange signal in our back garden, but often can't out the front of our house (even though it's far less exposed). I don't think it's a problem limited to Orange tho', but a general problem in this bit of ED.

It is possible (and increasingly normal) for local councils to impose requirements for security on licenced premises - something like "licence application granted subject to the following conditions: 1. Provision of an SIA registered doorman at weekends between 8pm and 2am..." Don't know the specifics here.

If you can get a collar onto him, I've had success before in tracing an owner of an apparently homeless cat by attaching a little capsule with a note on asking any owner to call? Turned out kitty wasn't so enamoured of the recent addition to the household - a 6 month old baby. I think the owners eventually decided to rehome her, given her obvious unhappiness.