Robert Poste's Child

Just been for a two-and-a-half hour walk - through the village, Love Walk, Belair, beside the railway line to Sydenham Hill station, Dulwich Woods and the nature reserve, Cox's Walk, Fireman's Alley, Dulwich Park - and didn't see one pile of dog mess. Massive improvement. Good work, people of Dulwich.

All business people are opportunists, DF. Whether what they trade in appeals to your personal tastes or not, they all depend on the business working commercially - no minimum wage for the self-employed. Even charities, whose primary motivation isn't profit, have to be financially viable. These days it's only in the public sector that workers are cushioned and removed from this reality.

Ironic, anyway. Even more so the hen party who complained after being thrown off a flight due to their offensive t-shirts and behaviour upsetting other passengers. The news said the replacement trip took them to the country festival in Las Vegas at the weekend.

It's amazing how many people don't seem concerned about road safety. In this morning's rush hour I saw a man, presumably the father, cycling up the Brixton end of Railton Rd with one child on a bike in front of him, another behind, and he himself had a dog running beside him on a lead. None had any hi-vis though I think the kids had helmets, and all seemed oblivious to the risk of pedestrians stepping out, cars opening doors suddenly or pulling out, and this on a road that's a hotspot for that kind of thing - just after I passed them a driver in the queue of traffic suddenly pulled a three-point turn without looking. Terrifying.

Have you tried James Barber on his thread (assuming you're within ED)?

And vice versa, no doubt.

I think it just started much earlier and has a longer planning cycle to it. An elderly neighbour often told me that the village used to have the full range of normal shops where she could do all her shopping. She worked as a cleaner and for the first couple of decades she lived in our road the resident profile seems to have been very different.

In a very real sense, yes.

It's in the thread about the meeting, here: http://www.eastdulwichforum.co.uk/forum/read.php?5,1859579

In a way the Village is the dire warning on ED's doorstep. Gentrification or not, developments in ED are ultimately decided by the local community - if a business doesn't attract trade, it closes and someone else moves in to take their chance, whereas in the Village it's stage-managed with a rather heavy hand and so it lacks that reality and edge. I rather like the Stepfordness of it, and I've lived there for a decade, but if you want to see what controlled gentrification does, look no further.

Re the Queen's English, I bet if you stopped anyone in the royal family and asked, they wouldn't be able to tell you the correct use of a semi-colon. Maybe the Queen herself. I'm guessing apostrophes aren't a big concern for Harry, for example.

JohnL Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > > Oh and sorry UG but punctuation is bunk :) UG was picking up on the spelling, not the punctuation, and (no offence, UG) his own punctuation in that post disappeared halfway trough!

TheCat wrote: --------------------- > For example, what am i if i like both gay marriage > and austerity? David Cameron. What have I won?

I wonder why they would choose to do a consultation now? Surely it would make more sense to wait until the quiet way at the end of Court Lane is finished and in use.

A handful of recycling just came through my letterbox (hint to leafletters: when you do this after dark the householder's first thought is that you're a burglar). It included this gem: 'Seen this leaflet? So will your customers! Would you like more customers? Leaflet distribution is the solution!' I'll spare you the excessive use of capital letters. Side 2 is recruiting delivery people. If anyone would like to take it up with them, the company claims to be local and is called DOR-2-DOR.

And old attitudes to women, which apparently haven't!

Keep finding huge, meaty spiders indoors. One of the downsides of living alone is knowing you have to deal with this yourself, particularly having to catch it and take it outside rather than hoovering it up or whacking it with a boot. Self-judgement going on on several levels.

I also live locally and both sets of information that came through the door say late Feb, if all goes to plan. I can scan the information tomorrow if anyone needs it.

Wish I'd known that before as I've still got a pair of old frames I really like but high street opticians charge you as much to reglaze as for a new pair.

My last-but-one pair came from Surrey Quays Tesco and either an arm or a nose pad fell off about once a week the entire three years I had them, which put me off going for the absolute cheapest, sorry to say.

Both eyes are different and need different prescriptions for reading and computer. Plus the poundland ones are the same thickness all the way across whereas prescription ones for me would be thicker in the middle and thinner at the edges, the opposite of short-sighted. Finally had a new eye test and got the cheapest reasonably viable combination, but still over ?200. Went to a Boots where they gave me 25% off - unbelievably kind and I was very grateful.

Syringe? Which end are you thinking of using it?

As well as being a library, it acts as a study hall, a place to access the digital word, education and services, a community centre and somewhere warm and dry for people to go and sit for a while without having to buy anything. I think that's strengthened its value but it does mean you get all sorts.

Not sure if I'd go that far but they're a very personal thing in that most of us spend a long time choosing the frames, then getting exactly the right fit to your head and then getting used to the prescription. As mine were bifocals and I used them for everything except distance I'm now swapping from one poundland pair to another and back again, and as neither is quite right and my eyes have slightly different prescriptions I'm getting headaches adjusting. So not a big disaster in the great scheme of things (message to the universe: I don't need proof of that thank you) but a problem nonetheless.

I didn't say I asked them to: I just pointed out that their website doesn't include theft in their list of crimes. Tch.