worldwiser

It is exactly 100% StraferJack and yeknomyeknom. I specifically asked the guy from PictureHouse about that on the weekend and he confirmed they will.

Love the idea of diagonal crossing. Chances of it happening: zero. Mainly because I believe Oxford Circus is the first and only one in the country and I doubt they'll be using ED as a test ground for a second. But lengthening the green man (perhaps only at appropriate times of day so it's only longer when it's helpful?)

I agree, meticulous attention to detail. Spoke to two of the people there and they clearly know what they're doing and are not about to annoy anyone. Genuinely interested in other people's concerns.. quicker they can get it open the better.

James, I wonder if you could illuminate us on how our local roads are selected for resurfacing? It seems utterly haphazard since pretty much all the residential roads in the area are in an equally distressed state. How come Silvester, Goodrich and Pellatt are the lucky ones? Why not, say Lacon, Crawthew and Archdale? Be interesting to see how these things are assessed - is it a vote?

Willard, like I say, I was foolishly taken in. Dominos' website is set up to dupe people with its slick console and colourful offers of this and that. A minute-by-minute ticker showing what state your pizza is in and how many seconds remain before it'll be deposited at your door. Hard to remember after going through all that that you're actually ordering food. Unfortunately what arrived was barely fit for my dog. And it's collossally more expensive than the real thing which will soon be available within stumbling distance of my house :-)

They were offering the 34 rate to all comers last week. So naturally we got signed up immediately. But 48 still sounds bargainous compared with private gym rates.

Can't recommend the place highly enough. I'd much rather have online booking than 'turn up and see'. Staff are universally lovely including (and perhaps especially) the trainers. The place is spotless. You get 90m free creche care when using the gym. I'm amazed frankly at how much value you get for 34 quid a month. Especially given you can use any gym in the area including the posh new one they're building at E&C. Anyone complaining really doesn't know how good they've got it. Get organised, get your classes.

Hear hear apbremer. I understand motorists in Islington have successfully claimed the cost of new suspension from the council after they carpet-bombed much of that borough with them. I'd sooner see road-narrowing schemes rather than bumps. There really seems to be no standard for how these things are laid: there's so much variation between different sites. Some have a dangerously acute ramp which is barely safe to cross at 10mph let alone 20. Others are, as people have said, barely perceptible. As far as I can tell, it's entirely up to the contractor how much spoil to dump across the road before tarmaccing it. Is there actually an approved standard with a BS or ISO prefix of some kind??

You see, I tried that.. just because I was blown away by the concept and I was foolishly taken in by Dominos. I must say, they're absolutely vile!

The whole point about their Neapolitan pizzas is that you don't drown them in toppings - their sourdough base is deliriously tasty so it doesn't need it. Go see Dominos or Pizza Hut if that's your cup of tea but I'm hoping it'll be identical to Brixton.

Simply googling will reveal at least 3 dependable sources that confirm it's to be a Franco Manca by mid-late summer. Jeez.. going to Brixton was such a pain.

Well, from my forensic reading of the flyer I'm guessing that there will be two meetings in 2 weeks' time where all curiosity will be satisfied. Maybe this means the Hall on LL will become the long anticipated Waitrose. Oh.. I said it.

Although, the only practice you can access the Lanes' midwives through is DMC. And the simply amazing care we got from them is reason enough to tolerate the sketchy healthcare the practice itself offers. If you stand your ground with them you can usually get what you want. Out of 5 GP appointments I've had in the last year, 4 were arranged around 8am by phone for the same day and the fifth the next. They're being forced to institute Internet appointments soon.

The bit they've done looks excellent. Although there's a huge section of potholes literally a couple of metres beyond where they downed tools. For goodness sake, why didn't they repair that section at the same time? The cost would have been negligible and they'll inevitably have to attend to it in the long run. It'll cost the taxpayer disproportionately to start up the site again and again cause us massive inconvenience. Absolutely no long-term thinking by Southwark - did they find a small pot of gold they had to spend before the end of the financial year or something?! Grateful if you could extract a response to this James.

I agree, definitely report him. Did he actually go to no. 86 when he left? And get a proper door with proper locks. No one attempts burglary on a house that looks hard to get into.

For the enormous disruption involved I really would expect them to be doing substantially more than just the bus stop. I hope they're going to resurface a larger area which needs doing anyway. No-one appears to have been working on the site for the last 3 days at least.

How is it possible this car STILL hasn't been removed. It's an incredibly dangerous eyesore and forces pedestrians into the petrol station forecourt where cars aren't expecting them. What possible public good is there in having it remain there? It's hardly being preserved for evidence..

Cheers for this James, very good news indeed.

Both our green and blue bins were emptied yesterday which is wonderful. Do I take it Southwark has therefore bent over under the force of Eric Pickles?

Hopefully the council will move to weekly collections as the government has mandated so we can all have smaller wheelie bins. They're such an eyesore and a huge blight on the urban landscape. Did the council actually review the visual impact they have when they instituted them, or was it a decision taken by an accountant? Hardly anyone has decent space to accommodate 3 large wheelie bins sensibly in their front yard.

Can I say that the escrow deposit approach is for properties at every price point - no lawyer should charge you extra for this service. Fully expecting to be shot down in flames... Some may be forgetting that anyone who's owned a property in London (or frankly anywhere) for 5 years or more may well be buying with a huge amount of unearned equity and may therefore be able to afford something which isn't strictly within their income bracket. It isn't just those people are terming 'the super rich.' Furthermore, a couple earning say 50k apiece before tax could hardly be described as such and could still comfortably afford the repayments on a half million. And there are decent flats in the area for half that. You might want to pause a moment before reclassifying the entire borough's population as belonging to the nebulous echelons of the super rich. People don't look at the price tag anyway.. they look at the monthly repayment and, with 15+ year fixes now available, so mitigate against interest rate rises. Compared to renting, mortgage repayments look dreamily affordable.

Escrow isn't 'giving the seller money.' It's in a legal suspension account with very specific conditions as to how it's used. Since most other countries have a version of this system, one could argue that NOT having it is madness. I've never seen a property transaction go bad with pre-exchange deposits in place: no gazumping or gazundering; no chains collapsing; and completion times invariably around the 6-8 week mark. Highly recommended. There is no genuine reason not to do this if you're serious about buying a property. It gives the buyer rights and places responsibilities on the seller at a very early stage. Without it, the power is always with one side or the other which I've always thought is totally wrong.

SteveUK - any decent solicitor will deal with it. The money goes in escrow and is released back to the buyer only if there's a major structural defect or other unforseeable problem. They manage a similar system in most European countries that I'm familiar with, probably most of the rest of the world too - someone mentioned the US. In Hungary for instance, you have to pay a 10% holding deposit (rather unattractively in cash) at the seller's lawyer's office before it's taken off the market. I'm not advocating that, but we do have archaic conveyancing arrangements in England & Wales. Scotland is far better. ???? Because I'm immediately in effective negative equity if I choose to sell at a price which doesn't take into account the tax I've just paid to the government. There's been a huge and increasing trend towards turnaround property transactions in recent years but, in any case, I read an article last year that claimed the average length of house ownership in London is now only around 7-8 years.. Stamp tax inevitably has an inflationary effect. Less so if one keeps a property for many many years of course.

I've never sold a property without getting some money up front from the buyer - it's perfectly acceptable and I honestly don't understand why it isn't done as a matter of course. Nothing huge, just a grand or two. No honest buyer can possibly have a problem with this and the seller is compensated appropriately if they walk away for a frivolous or non-critical reason. Stamp duty alone is responsible for a huge component of price inflation. If I buy a house and have to hand over 10k to the government, my property immediately has to be valued at 10k more than I bought it for if I'm not to be out of pocket when selling.

Extremely erratic service for 2-3 days now. Our hub is flashing like crazy even when no-one's using it.