Old Yeller

No No No Do we really want Lordship Lane turning into yet another anonymous bland high street with branches of the multiples ? No

So.... Goose Green is a wee hotspot.... Anywhere else?

A zebra crossing, or even pedestrian lights outside the Co-op. Yes. plus... child-buggies and kids' scooters to be fitted with flashing warning lights and audible sound warning systems.

CUT YOUR HEDGE Keep it to a level that allows other people to see into your garden...and so your ground floor windows are plainly visible on all sides from the street.

The Co-op. Southwark Life. These are the 2 main transgressors of my No Junk Mail prohibition - loudly proclaimed on my letterbox. Then there's the odd piece of illiterate junk from some scam 'charity' collecting clothes on behalf of disadvantaged children...in Lithuania. Junk mail is anything not addressed to me personally...including that gem of local democracy and creativity in action, Southwark Life, ...and including the ethical grocery's endless stream of marketing junk that gets delivered by the taxpayers' postal service, whether we want it or not. This is particularly galling , as even if you register with the Mail Preference service so companies cannot direct mail you, they get around it by paying the Post Office to deliver their junk to you anyway, just without your name on. How ethical is that? I agree wholeheartedly with the previous posts about Southwark Life. Totally useless, uninformative, condescending, patronising waste of taxes, trees, time and effort. Still, I guess it gives a few bods at the council (who'd otherwise have eff all to do every month, or no job) something to do when they're not in meetings. Goes straight in my recycling bin where it's collected by other council workers who take it away (and then fling the recycle bin, lid and bag onto my plants) to be recycled into material for yet more Southwark Lifes that have to be rewritten by council 'officers', redistributed to householders, recycled, reprocessed, remanufactured, redistributed, rewritten ......... Scrap it. It's real, expensive JUNK.

Hindmans Road Recently, on a couple of occasions, pressure so low that my boiler wouldn't fire up! I'm on an ancient shared mains system with 2 other houses. Thames Water quoted me an astronomical amount to run a new line from the road to the boundary of my house...and I would have to separately have new pipework installed from the boundary to the house. Also told me I couldn't have a water meter so although I live in a household of one, I have to pay their standard house rate. 'Scuse me, must just go and turn the tap volume down ...just a bit.

Oh dear, I was just thinking of transferring my vote to the LibDems (ex-Labour) when I read James Barber?s comments on Afghanistan. Much as JB might feel fortunate, and much as Paddy Ashdown might be perceived to be a moderate and congenial person, let?s not forget his military background. Afghanistan?let?s please remember why we went in there originally. Let?s also remember that democracy, by its very nature, is not something that can be imposed, much as we might like it to be, in our superior ignorance. And it isn?t that long ago that we were on the side of the Taliban?.when it suited us politically. And we were also allied, politically, militarily and economically to a military dictator in Pakistan whose own security forces were fomenting the problems. The argument posited by James Barber is spurious. If you go down this line then we?d better get straight into Iran, North Korea, Israel and probably a whole lot of other places in the Horn of Africa. Let?s not forget that the only country to ever use nuclear weapons is America. And, seeing what complete devastation they wrought, they did it again. That, surely, is terrorism, just as dropping ?clean? bombs on people in Baghdad in the name of democracy , or slaying innocent families in Afghanistan in the name of freedom, is. Now, apart from the hundreds of thousands of dead people, the destroyed livelihoods and shattered families, we have the issue of the extraordinary numbers of babies being born in Faluja with missing limbs and other dreadful abnormalities. Anyone got any idea why? Rhetorical question. I agree. There is no moral justification for terrorism - whether it?s the terrorism of the Taliban, the USA, the UK, Israel, Zimbabwe, Myanmar, or any other political entity. Maybe, just maybe, Obama can make a little difference. We have to hope so.

Please would you say what criteria you will use to vet questions? What are your guidelines for moderation of the subsequent threads?

Crikey, how jolly nice of you, Victoria, apologising for your competitors. Yes, of course we're all guilty of typos and grammatical errors. What is interesting about this particular missive is that it comes not from a primary school pupil project but from a political party that is actually hoping to run our education system. I would have thought that some very basic professional standards would be in order, you know, just standard stuff e.g. proof-reading before going to press. Then maybe it's just that I went to school at a time when literacy was important; when spelling, punctuation and grammar were routinely taught and routinely corrected.

It's contained in the bumpf for Peckham Rye Ward, which part of ED is in. Seems it might be something coming from HHarman as we've been moved into Camberwell and Peckham Rye. My questions remain unanswered. Where are the shopping arcades in East Dulwich? HH's website shows a map with the places she has visited over a fairly long period of time. None of these visits appear to have been to East Dulwich. As for my Labour Councillors....well, before last Sunday I hadn't seen or heard from them since they last came looking for my vote some years back. Re the bumpf threads: some of us are novices at this and might just get the impression that we are just a bit irritating to some more experienced members. Sorry if my error in opening 2 threads has offended you old timers but PURLEEEASE can you be just a little patient?

Katie 1997, I can honestly say that I have not noticed such basic, or glaring, errors in bumpf from any other party. It was the sheer lack of professionalism that caught my eye, from the punctuation in the first headline...and so on. The whole thing smacks of ignorance - from its execution through to the cherry-picking and crowing about council(i.e. Tory) achievements, whilst ignoring ownership of the less successful facts for which the Tories are also responsible e.g. the "poor recycling rate" which they now plan to "boost". I guess they hope that the electorate are ignorant of what's actually been happening in Southwark whilst they've been sharing power here.

Oh dear Jeremy, not you too. I think you are referring to dry kerb-side recycling, not curb side recycling!

I see from the bumpf sent out by Harriet Harman to us living in East Dulwich - Peckham Rye Ward, which has now moved to her constituency, that the Labour Party?s sole plan for investing in the East Dulwich community is by ?tidying up shopping arcades and parades.? Does anyone know of any shopping arcades in East Dulwich, yet alone any that need ?tidying up?? Do Harman or Labour?s prospective councillors actually know where East Dulwich is? From Tessa Jowell to Harriet Harman. Out of the frying pan and into the fire.

Can we trust the Tories to uphold any minimum education or literacy standards? I give you the following, quoted directly from their Working For Our Community bumpf which has been shoved through letterboxes. Italics are mine. Dog Fouling ? ?We will reduce dog fouling through early morning patrols by the wardens and more waste bins in estates and local areas.? ?? Just what are ?local areas?? Are not all areas local or does this refer to areas local only to estates? Recycling ? ?We?ll incentivise recycling through a vouchers scheme which has increased dry curb side recycling by 30% in Windsor?.? Anyone know what dry curb side recycling is? Harris Boys Academy ? ?A secondary school is a definite plus for Peckham Rye. We would put as ourselves forward to be Governors?..? This doesn?t bode well for Harris Boys. Perhaps the school might think of running adult literacy classes for prospective Tory councillors.

?BIN IT? SIGNS. I?m a dog owner and just as irritated by abandoned dog poo on our pavements as anyone else. I live half-way along a resdiential road with a fairly narrow pavement. It?s not a major thoroughfare and has few pedestrians. Some time ago I left my house one morning to discover a council workman stencilling a yellow ?Bin it? sign on the pavement right outside my garden gate. The sign was facing my house. I asked why he was placing it there and he replied that a ?neighbour? had requested the council to place it outside my house. My immediate neighbours know that I never leave dog poo on the pavement or anywhere else. I can only surmise that someone from further along my road who is as fed up with dog poo as I am has come to the wrong conclusion about who the culprit might be. Being pretty incensed by the positioning of the sign, which was clearly targeted at me personally, I called Southwark council and asked them to remove it. They did so within 24 hours. It seems quite extraordinary that this sign was placed in such a precise position, at the sole request of one disgruntled person who had clearly got the wrong end of the stick. I felt it was tantamount to a very public accusation of breaking the law to which I?d been given no right of reply. Perhaps there?s a common misconception that all dog owners are responsible for all dog mess? One thing is for sure, in my opinion. Publicly targeting random dog owners in this way is unfair, ineffective, expensive and does nothing to foster amicable neighbourly relationships. Further cluttering the already overloaded visual environment with nasty expensive yellow stencilled signs will do nothing to encourage dog owners to clear up. Most, if not all, already know they should do it, and by not doing so seem to disregard even their own personal interest in our common space. This disregard for our shared environment is fairly normal human behaviour and abandoned dog poo is not the only, and probably not even the worst, example. Unless, and until, there is a root and branch clean-up of the whole dog industry with compulsory registration, licensing and professional standards for breeders, sellers, trainers and owners I fear the various anti-social and public health issues associated with dogs are set to continue.