BlueOne

Bradford - maybe you could get your employers to allow you a change of route if this one is making you so ANGRY. It's really not healthy you know.

Haven't seen the old: "If you don't like our ways, get out" argument for a while!

There are plenty of occupations that are no more edifying than appearing on television despite a marked lack of talent. Is there some sort of league table that we should consult before expressing sympathy for an individual who is suffering from cancer? For example I for one find the vast sums paid to men for playing football absolutely sickening - football is, after all, only entertainment, but I would be deeply sorry to hear of any young football player who was dying from cancer. And yes, I appreciate that being able to play football at a high level requires talent, but this talent is only valid to those who value this game. It's a game after all. So we can all judge Jade Goody as having no talent. Fair enough, but I have to say, she's got a bloody better talent than I have for making herself millions - with a much less privileged backkground than I come from.

Oh Jeremy you seem to have misunderstood Honk's (and various others)point. This post contains a perfectly valid description which might help someone identify a bogus caller at their door.I totally agree with Honk over Wheeliegate but I think you're a bit confused as to why Honk objected to the spurious description bandied about during the Wheeliegate discussions in the first place.

Oh my goodness I agree with TLS! I also recall another woman in the public eye who had a very public battle with cancer, but not sure why Kylie Minogue wasn't villified in the same way.

Hello I know I have seen a couple of estate agents posting on here, and I'm hoping they might be able to help with something I need to do for work. Basically I am looking at statistics on the number of agents that have closed down due to the CC. I've tried the National Association of Estate Agents, The Estate Agents Ombudsman and the office of national Stats. Any other ideas? Thanks for any help BlueOne

Sue - that's what scared me too at the time, especially as I had been working from home the day before. I never answer the buzzer either during the day because I assume it is not going to be for me, so i had nightmares for days about me sitting in the flat as the door got kicked in! Luckily though I began to see sense once I calmed down, and realised that if I had been there, there would have been open curtains, lights, the radio on etc,so it probably would never have happened.

Yeah the communal thing is tricky - especially in a rented place. Our communal door is actually heavily fortified - just carelessness in not using it in our case. Unfortunately even since the break-in and a heartfelt plea to the other tenants in the block, it is still being left unlocked. I've decided to leave them to it as everythng I owned of value is now gone. The cops told me about the plastic bottle thing too. I must have lived a sheltered life - I had no idea of such techniques..

Same thing happened to me - the whole door was kicked off and lying in the hall. They gained access through the unlocked communal front door then kicked the interior doors in under cover - so it's worth reminding people to be vigilant about locking up the communal doors, even if you have to put a note up to remind your neighbours. It's easy to get complacent, until something like this happens. Scary!

"Just a warning, a friend of mine was walking along Grove Vale towards Lordship Lane on Thursday about 6pm and felt she was being followed by a white man pulling a wheely suitcase" Helpful description?

Can't argue with that!

I for one do not want or need to be told this fact when it is gratuitous and unhelpful. "Black" is no more valid as a single descriptor than "white". Agree with Honk and the others who have questioned why this was mentioned at all. Given the closeness of the encounter that seems to have taken place, I would have thought if the OP was trying to offer a useful description, they would have included some or all of these: age, height, build, hair style, hair colour, eye colour, accent, clothing...? I am sure the woman involved was genuinely scared for her own reasons. This is obviously why she wanted the anecdote passed on to the wider community, but not sure how it was supposed to help.

I had such a bad experience with this guy one morning that I did actually write and complain. I gave the exact time, the stop and a description of the driver, but they claimed they were unable to ID the driver from the details given. Basically I just missed a 185, so was the very first person at the stop, waiting patiently for the next one. The bus pulled up and there was the usual 'every person for themself" rush for the door. I tried to get on with as much dignity as I could, only to realise that the bus driver was shouting: "get off my bus! get off my bus!". I was looking around to see who he was shouting at, and I realised it was me! He had decreed: 'NO ONE AFTER THE LADY IN THE RED COAT", but since I couldn't even see a lady in a red coat, I presumed it was OK. It then dawned on me that there was a lady in a red coat behind me, but that he specifically wanted ME to get off the bus. He actually shouted: "I will not move this bus until you get off". I actually PLEADED with him to let me stay on, as I had been waiting fifteen minutes. He stood his ground and commanded me to get off. At that point I called him a f*cking cnut and flounced off the bus in tears. For the record I am a rather respectable looking middle aged woman, not normally an abusive hooligan, and I have never seen ANYONE kicked off a bus despite witnessing some unbeliveably antisocial behaviour. Most humiliating experience of my life.

In that case why would you inform a public forum read by local people about "what could have been an innocent mistake"? Sorry Sue to keep banging on about this, it's really not not personal, and it's very clear that your post was well intentioned, but it just worries me that something of this nature can be aired in such a public way. People who work directly with the public are so vulnerable to accusations which they are usually unaware of and unable to defend. Maybe I feel so strongly about it becauase I am from a working class background, I still have friends and family who work in shops and can identify more with the shop workers than with you. Again, sorry. I guess we will never agree on this one. I am dipping out of this one now. Adios.

OK imagine this hyptothetical scenario: An acquaintance gets home from the pub and realises her purse has disappeared from her bag. She remembers she was sitting next to me at one point and that at one point I engaged her in conversation and "distracted" her. Could it be that I took the wallet out of her bag? She's not sure. Maybe I did, maybe I didn't. She doesn't want to mention it to me, because after all, she can't prove anything, but she does feel it is her duty to warn as many people as she can that there is a possibility that I may have nicked her purse out of her bag. Just a 'heads up' generally, you know, to warn people that I am possibly potentially maybe a purse thief.

It is too easy to make these sorts of allegations in such a public way using this forum. If you were serious about the complaint, you could have gone to the manager or even the police, but you chose to publicly cast suspcision on ALL the LL Somerfield workers. The complaint is not even about Somerfield the shop, but actually an allegation that one of the individuals who works on the tills in LL Somerfield is potentailly a thief. There are not many people working on the tills in LL Somerfield... How would you feel if YOU (or your son or daughter) worked on the till in Lordship Lane Somerfield? A great many people who have read this thread will be looking at the probably perfectly innocent workers and thinking: "Which one is the thief?". I have had many crap jobs over the years and I valued them all and wanted to hang on to them for dear life. I ask why you think someone would risk their job and regular incomme to try and pull some flagrant distraction scam in order to grab an extra few quid. Please be careful who you point the finger at on this forum. A person's reputation is a precious thing.

Not surprised this was jumped on in this way - but for the record - my issue wasn't at all with kids in Sainers - it was more about entire families milling about. Surely if there are two adults one could stay out and watch the kids? I would like to think that for a healthy, functional society here is room for people to make some allowances for how their choices affect the people they are sharing their space with?

Sounds great! I'll pop in on my way home from my next Friday night out!

I have been in this branch of Sainsburys several times a week for years now and I can honestly say the only antisocial behaviour I've ever experienced has been at the hands of that peculiarly recognisable breed of "memsahib" that seems to frequent ED. I've been: *trolley barged *had my trolley seized and flung out of the way *been ordered imperiously to move *stood politely to allow someone to pass, only to watch incredulously as a procession of above types have passed without a glance, let alone a thank-you *I have also countless times had to negotiate my way around entire familes - with no move by adults to ask their children to move out of the way, and indeed 'attitide' when I have politely said "excuse me" or tried to reach around 3 children to get at a shelf. This one particularly annoys me. OK one parent on their own has no choice but to drag the kids through the supermarket, but Mum, Dad and three kids? Talk about lack of consideration for other people trying to go about their business! I'm surprised I haven't been in a fight up there given the amount of provocation I experience at every visit! By contrast the staff have always been chatty and sweet.

Listen guys - I know you love the insular vibe you think you have created in ED, but seriously - this is LONDON - you all need to get a fcuking life. If you are so damn cool and demanding acceptance of YOUR WAY why are you unable to accept that there are people in SE22 who may not like the music and "atmos" you prefer? A few years ago ED was 'transformed'. A lot of you did well from the regeneration of the area. Did you give a damn about what the original residents thought about your poncification of the area? NEWSFLASH - some 'old school' locals aren't exactly OK with your 'new ways'. Now you are experiencing the next wave. So now you are getting a sense of how it feels to have what you thought was your community gradually ripped out from under your feet. So a new bar. So called Claphamisation. Progress - right?

and furthermore: "Someone needs to fight to ensure the community remains geared towards families" Why exactly?

As as single 45 year old public sector worker (and a 'professional' actually) I have never been able to afford to buy my own house and unless some fairytale windfall happens I never will. But I want to live a comfortable life and my desire to make my home clean and safe and pleasant is as strong as anyone else's! Although I am not living in a flat at the moment, I will be again very soon. I am actually offended by the assumption that I am somehow a second class citizen due to the necessity of living in a flat! Believe it or not in London not everyone is part of a family. Surely flat dwellers have as much right to live in any street in any nice area as families? I think you need to address your assumptions cicelyl. I cannot believe you assume that living in a flat seems to equal undesirable antisocial behaviour. Believe it or not, there is a whole swathe of society who are perfectly decent people despite not having a spare ?600k to buy a 'family home'. Or should we create some sort of reservation where all non-family people can be coralled to watch porn on giant screen televisons and make excessive noise together? Somewhere that is not ED I am guessing? Also - "increased levels of noise and activity"? Perhaps the flat dwellers are inconvenienced by the increased noise created by families? And in my experience of East Dulwich, it is not the flat dwelling non-family types who clog nthe streets with cars. Check out the BMW estates and 4x4s that clog the streets around here. I feel saddened by your post. [/pre]

Hi Clinker I am also a lone female and have always avoided ground floor flats for exactly the security worries that you mention, and yet, for the last 5 years I've been living in a semi-detached house and hardly even given a second thought to the fact that it is (partly) ground floor! I'm not really sure why I would be scared in a ground floor flat but perfectly fine in a house with a window onto the street, but I guess the moral is, my house is really secure so I feel very safe. I now know I would feel equally safe in a ground floor flat. However I do sleep with my (upstairs) bedroom window open which I wouldn't do in a ground floor flat, and I am pretty careful about not leaving the front window open if I am in the shower or back garden. BlueOne

A friend of a friend works for Nandos and claims they are East Dulwich bound - could this be the premises?

I reckon these latter posts are brilliant and make a lot of sense - and lozzyloz males a great point about the inability of all kids to be perfectly behaved at all times. I am in no way without sympathy for the rights of parents to have some freedom and fun! But please don't get upset if there are tipsy people or loudly guffawing people or swearing people or even smokers in the beer garden while your kids are around. It is a pub after all. (And for the record I am none of these - except maybe the slightly tipsy one sometimes!)