dave

We used the guys at FSAR a few years ago and they did an excellent job. We went with solid oak - was slightly more expensive than the engineered option, but it was lovely. Happy to provide more info if you want to PM.

Agree entirely with everything Marmora Man says above. To turn this into a he said/she said party political issue is daft. An objective study, maybe a pilot and a cost/benefit analysis (including the impact of the Overground extension via Peckham Rye) would be much better than everything we're seeing at the moment.

Another vote in favour - we moved house last year and inherited an IKEA kitchen in the new place. The snob in me was prepared to be disappointed, but it's actually turned out to be really solid and hard-wearing. Obviously couldn't tell you much about how easy it was to fit etc, but to live with it's been fine. The other upside is that we've been able to get accessories very easily - things like drawer-tidies etc.

Not sure this is true. While nobody is meant to cycle of the pavement, children under 10 are below the age of criminal responsibility. The Met have, however, said that they're unlikely to take action on kids cycling on the pavement - see this story from last year for details.

I had this issue a couple of times when I lived in Deptford, but not so much recently. The rules as currently published by TfL state that a driver with his/her light on must accept any fare which terminates within 12 miles and is in the Greater London area - 20 miles if started at Heathrow. See the TfL website for official guidance. In my experience stating that they're obliged to take you where you want to go, politely and patiently - even before talking about taking the cab number - is enough to convince the driver that they ought to do their job. God knows what they have to deal with in terms of drunk/abusive/threatening passengers from time to time, but there's still no excuse for some of the responses people have noted above when drivers were asked to take people home. There's no reason not to travel to SE London other than the chance they won't get a return fare.

So, let me get this straight: someone organised an Irish festival for the 12th of July - and it all passed off with no rioting whatsoever? Truly we live in a post-Troubles era... Sorry I missed it.

A question for the OP - exactly where were you parked when the damage was inflicted? Was it down near the station? Agree on the speed cushions. Lewisham seem determined to put them in, but don't limit the parking around them, creating the slalom situation. Still, at least it slows *most* people down...

Happens all the time - I had a similar thing when I lived in the borough of Westminster. Car was parked legally in a residents' bay for which a permit was displayed. Parking attendant came along at noon one day and with no notice suspended the bay for half an hour (for an "emergency" which didn't have any further documentation/information) and ticketed my car. Essentially without moving the car became illegally parked. Given the affront to the principle of legitimate expectation which governs a lot of administrative law around council actions, I tried appealing but gave up fairly soon. This happened when I realised that paying the 30 quid to resolve the thing was going to be a better idea than fighting through the council's own appeal/adjudication process, and my conclusion was reinforced when they told me that I'd be liable for costs if the appeal failed. Given the broad support the new mayor appears to have for London's car drivers, I half-expected him to bring an independent parking appeals body into existence. But it appears not.

Harriet said: "it might be enforceable in a court of law, this contract, but it is not enforceable in the court of public opinion and that is where the government steps in." Now, this court of public opinion sounds like a good thing to me - how did the jury of this court find the defendant, one Mr T Blair, when he was accused, with multiple accomplices, of acting in bad faith in taking the UK into a war (or two)? For these wars there appeared to be no mandate or justification - either ahead of time with regard to any resolution/vote in the UN, or through any credible intelligence on weapons of mass destruction, or retrospectively through what was found in Iraq and Afghanistan. And what did the judge of this court of public opinion do when one J Smith, of (occasionally) Nunhead, was found with her fingers in the till of public money? Leaving aside the implications of legislating for one badly-conducted contractual negotiation, this is a very dangerous move for the government to be talking about. The PM appears to have backtracked today, thankfully...

The bike racks I am talking about are on the outside. See here for the sort of thing. I wonder if UK road safety legislation would prevent them from being legal here. Caroyln's update from TfL does paint the driver in a slightly better light - saying that, I still think he ought to have stayed in his safety cage (what's it for, otherwise?) and called the police.

Regardless of how it "started", there are two people here who broke the law, and acted in a way that, in my opinion, civilised society really ought not consider acceptable, much less funny. The cyclist banging on the side of the bus and kicking the doors open - criminal damage, pure and simple. The bus driver punching the cyclist in the face - common assault, and possibly also something for leaving the scene. The bus driver is, I think, fairly being criticised above - primarily because he has a duty of care to his passengers and to other road users which he appears to have abrogated completely. Regardless of the circumstances, and the lead-up, he never had to leave his perspex safety cell - the Met would, I imagine, have been there fairly promptly had he reported the incident and in the meantime, he would have been completely safe. By doing what he did, and striking out at someone who clearly has serious anger management issues, he left himself open to disciplinary action and potentially prosecution. Both acted unacceptably. Who started it is as immaterial as any playground fight. I appreciate that driving a bus in London is not particularly well-paid, and I imagine it's not a wildly satisfying occupation. And while I have my share of stories about being a bus passenger while someone drove in a way which I felt was reckless, or being a cyclist and having a bus pull around me to stop thirty yards later, I've never reached the point where a punch in the head seemed to be the logical next step in conflict resolution and I hope I never will. I'm more a "stop by the side of the road, take a cameraphone pic of the bus and draft a stern letter of complaint which never gets posted but which makes me feel much better" sort of chap. In this case, both were at fault, and I think I would have been scared witless had I been a passenger on the bus. Even in the absence of prosecutions, I also think that it's newsworthy. People shouldn't get away with this sort of thing - the SLP seems as good a means as any to discuss what happened here and make sure it's followed up. The antipathy between cyclists and bus drivers appears to be worsening - I'd like to see some ideas on why, and how to make the situation better - personally I'd like to see bike racks on the front of buses as they have in the US and elsewhere. That might go some way to remove the "them and us" from the situation.

On a people-from-The-Wire-turning-up-unexpectedly, and without going into a long story as to how I came to be watching it, City Senator Clay Davis (or at least the actor who plays him) turns up in (the actually-not-half-bad-if-you're-in-the-mood) Disney film Enchanted. I really wanted a good long sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee-it from him... Is up there with Stringer Bell in the Jack Davenport/Susannah Harker Channel 4 vampire thing from some years ago - Ultraviolet.

The Highway Code is succinct and clear on this: "You MUST NOT cycle on a pavement." No exceptions - for kids or anyone else. String 'em up, that's what I say. And as for those RLJ's... hanging's too good for them.

I know exactly where you mean and I've often wobbled my way through there worrying. Hope you're ok. As with previous incidents reported here, this makes me think that the only viable option for cycling is busy, well-lit roads. But to make those safe to cycle on we're going to need more than a foot-and-a-half of occasional green tarmac. Driver education and proper bike lanes would be a good start.

Also worth looking at Gourmet Pizza Company at Gabriel's Wharf.