flong

Worth noting, perhaps, that by their own admission, this lot on Goose Green are not what anyone above 35 would call students. If they're in receipt of EMA, as they say they are, then they are pupils of sixth-form age, not students. EMA is granted only to 16-18 year-olds. It did prompt me to wonder why the hell they aren't living at home with their families. JamesF has come up with the only explanation so far proffered. Do these "squatters" have a better one?

Mark Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > So what else does the cryptic press release say? Nothing. Just "Confidential - coming soon to East Dulwich... Den Lodge Private members' club."

I've just seen a rather cryptic press release announcing that a private members' club called Den Lodge is to be opened in East Dulwich. There's no other info on it, other than the contact details of Antic (www.antic-ltd.com), the company that owns the EDT and a clutch of other pubs. Anyone heard anything about this? (Given the name, perhaps its target market will be the local population of foxes.)

I was walking past and saw you getting the parking ticket, as it happens - at least, assume it was you. This spot is a cash cow for Southwark, and their officials check it regularly. As mentioned above, legal parking half-off the pavement doesn't start until about one car-length from the junction with Grove Vale - but the road markings are so faded that you should have a reasonable case.

My favourite snippet in that book is that a boy at Harrow School was "known as Bum Bathsheba on account of his opulent posterior parts"

Kebab and wine The whimpering noise you make the morning after a doner

Fuck yeah! Best of luck to Steve and Bev in Porthcawl (being Welsh myself, I know they'll need it...) I was there on the first night, and I was there on the last. And to hell with the Clapham wine bar that takes its place.

falcao Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Statistically is there a higher quota of curtain > twitchers in East Dulwich then any other area of > London? I reckon a pie chart is needed. That's the whole point of the forum - you don't even have to get off the sofa to go and twitch the curtains.

I've yet to come across a vixen that sounds like Lorraine Chase losing it on the Campari. No corpses - just a load of empty Super-T cans in the front garden.

...does anyone have a clue what's going on? There has been about half an hour of screaming from the Crystal Palace end of the green, and I'm damned if I'm going to get dressed to go rubbernecking.

Pissaro knocked around locally, and painted the now defunct Lordship Lane station (on canvas, that is - he didn't apply a coat of Sandtex to the ticket office). Walk about 200 yards up Cox's Walk from the Harvester and you can still stand on the bridge from which he painted it.

ratty Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Flong, glad to hear the house on EDR has not > caused you too much trouble cos I work for the > organisation that runs it! :) Er... I suppose that there's more to it than that. I've disturbed their sleep with my occasional drunken interludes (breaking in when key is actually in pocket, etc) far more than they've ever disturbed me. Pass on my apologies.

More to the point, there is already a halfway house for vulnerable or troubled adults on East Dulwich Road - exactly the sort of place that gets NIMBYites hot under the cassock and off painting their placards. I have lived next door to it for more than six years, and never had any trouble (except, once, for a week of VH1 being played a bit loud in the early hours. I dropped a polite note through the door, and they stopped).

A gang of six teenagers tried to mug me on an almost deserted train out of East Dulwich. Very stupidly, I didn't give them anything, and they moved on to the only other people in the carriage, battering a young woman about the head and nicking her bag as the train pulled in to the next station. About a year later, I recognised the face of one of the gang - on the front page of the Evening Standard. He'd been locked up for a few years for being part of a "steaming gang". A couple of years after that, I saw him on the front of the Standard again. He'd been sent down for killing Damilola Taylor.

4hw Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I have lived on Fenwick Road since September and > have always felt very safe whatever time of the > day and end of road I was walking from. I have not > seen any gangs of youths hanging around - I think > this must be a problem of the past! Welcome to the > area, Jenni. Oh well. Should have tried to buy that flat when it was still nearly affordable.

I used to live on Fenwick Road, at the junction with East Dulwich Road - and yes, I did find the few yards around the front door a bit intimidating. There were often nutters hanging around there (perhaps I can be forgiven for not asking them what social class they'd claim to belong to) partly because in those days the Costcutter opposite was one of the only places to buy booze out of hours. Occasionally they'd beat the crap out of each other, but never had a go at me.

Er...there was a back bar in Page Two? Live and learn.

You missed my point. They had more than enough > space to mention the ED Deli, Mootown, Moxons, > William Rose, Hope & Greenwood and others, all of > which just happen to be the sort of shops that > would fit in comfortably in Telegraph or indeed > Daily Mail strongholds like - I don't know - > Arundel, or Stow-on-the-Wold, or Corbridge. But > they had no space for SMBS or Cheese Block which > were here long before all the others. Don't understand your point at all. Why should a journalist visiting East Dulwich, writing a piece on the food highlights of the area, care an (organic) fig about how long the places have been here? The piece wasn't intended to rank SE22's food stores for their longevity. And how on earth are SMBS and the Cheese Block are any more "individual" than the places that the feature mentioned? I could come up with more stores that are similar to those two in, say, Cardiff or Oxford than I could find ones analogous to Mootown, EDD or Hope & Greenwood.

I've always found it easiest to go via Victoria (185 all the way, or from Denmark Hill) taking a District Line train and changing to the Piccadilly Line at Barons Court - it's on the other side of the same platform. On the way back I usually do this and take a cab from Victoria to East Dulwich - usually about ?16.

Jennys Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Just over 20 years ago when our children were > small (and no restaurants had high chairs etc, > even Mothercare had no changing mats) you could > buy a fabric thing, shaped a bit like an apron, > into which you could put a baby or toddler and > then tie the thing firmly onto the back of a > restaurant chair. (It folded small so you could > put it in a handbag or large pocket and have it > available when needed.) Maybe they still make > these, or you could make your own, which would > mean you could eat at any restaurant you like. Except for the ones that do not admit infants - a policy which (thank God) is still the management's right.

Actually, I like drinking here a lot - there are nights when a quiet few bottles of wine in Franklins hit the spot better than a livelier pub session elsewhere on Lordship Lane. The place gets name-checked as a worthwhile boozer on this website, from the travel journalist Ian Merchant: http://www.ianmarchant.com/index.htm Only gripe is that whenever I've asked for one of the (by no means cheap) bar snacks from the blackboard, there hasn't been a single occasion when the chef hasn't been "too busy" to knock one up - even when there are only two or three tables occupied in the main restaurant.

Asset Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > May I just recommend hinge bolts also. It's all > very well having fabulous security on one side of > the door and then having flimsy hinges on the > other that with a swift kick would send the door > in. > Hinge bolts are cheap to buy, easy to fit and > could make the difference. > (they are sort of knobby things that stick out of > the door jamb and fit into holes in the door when > the door is closed) Yep, the flat upstairs had them, and the door didn't give way even when given a hell of a hammering.

Snoopy Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > That's horrible. > What type of front door do you have that he broke > through first? Did it have deadlocks etc? Only a simple Yale - practically useless. I think he just carded it in the end. I've now contacted the leaseholder to get him to pressure the management company into fitting a decent lock before Xmas. That's the problem with being a tenant in a house with multiple occupancy - if we were all owner-occupiers, we could just buy the damn thing ourselves and get it fitted the same day. 8TCF - I am on the quiet, Goose Green side of ED road, about halfway between roundabout and church.

At about 7.05 this evening (Wed 12), someone broke into my house and tried to smash their way into the first-floor flat with a hammer. It's particularly worrying that this happened at a time when people could be expected to be in. I didn't ring 999 at the time, as I wasn't sure the racket wasn't the folks upstairs locked out or something (though I was worried enough to do the courageous thing and cower behind my own door till the bloke had left, since I live alone) and the upstairs door was still shut when I went to look afterwards. It was only when the flat occupant returned that it was realised that the door had been done over, apparently with a heavy hammer. The police have since been informed. I can't believe that this is the only job that this bloke has tried to do this evening. Only look I got at him was from behind, disappearing down East Dulwich Road - grey hoodie with jacket over it, which isn't much use, but keep 'em peeled. Has anyone else had an unwelcome visit today? Carving knife under the pillow from now on, I think.

naboo Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > a few weeks ago half of the roof of the phoenix > (next door to the station) was pinched. it's > become pretty common apparently. the real problems > occur when it rains! I believe there's now an electric fence protecting the roof on that side of the building, but it doesn't extend to the part that's over the ticket hall. Shame.