paulino

OK, I dont know why I am bothering (must be a slow day) but here goes as to why the survey is useless. I am sure others have said words to this effect earlier on, but seeing as you keep insisting that the survey is not flawed, then here goes: In the first section, there are four named options for things people think the council should improve. Surely when designing this questionnaire you could've come up with a few more options? If you are going to provide multiple choices then you MUST provide, ok maybe not a totally exhaustive list, but then at least something that is a little more comprehensive. Street lighting, state of road and pavement, dog poo collection, library provision, how about things for ADULTS to do.... some of these things could've gone in? Human nature being as it is, respondents will invariably simply click on one of the things that you have listed (and more than likely those that appear near the top of the list), which will seriously skew the results. You mentioned Tetra Pak recycling in one of your later posts...and whaddayouknow...tetra pak recycling appears is one of the [three!] options in your other multiple choice question. It is CLEAR that a definite bias has informed the writing of this survey. In other places, your questions are not exactly neutral. [e.g. Do you think the Council makes the most of every single penny etc.]. It is a LOADED statement and it is going to give you probably very different results than if you had asked a question worded it differently. I am not in the slightest worried about primary school places. What happens if 100s of others like me answer the same? Does it mean that primary school provision is excellent? Or does it mean that a load of single, childless people have answered the survey? How can you tell? I personally think 1 mile is walking distance - so how do I answer the survey? I could go on and on but I dont have the strength. I dont mean to nitpick, but an awful lot more thought needs to go into the design of the survey if you want to be able to say with any credibility that the answers will not be severly biased in some way, otherwise you might as well just make up the results.

Can anybody tell me where the 'retirement' home in Dulwich that Lady Thatcher once bought was? Apparently she sold it because it was unsuitable. Have tried googling and searching this forum but can't find anything. An old telegraph article says that Dennis Thatcher 'Owned a four-bedroomed mock Georgian house on a Barratt homes estate in Dulwich' - any ideas where that would be?

i don't get it: EDF is normally full of threads vilifying buggy mums and bugaboos and yet when an article appears in the press you are now all getting your knickers in a twist and castigating the author for lazy generalisations, vilification of poor mothers, etc.

where in the Dartmouth Rd / Kirkdale vicinity is good for a drink if not Woodman and Bird in Hand?

any patience i had with the local post offices was exterminated by that awful 'people's post office' advertising campaign that they are running - the people in the adverts (the old gent and his various sidekicks) seem to be like a bunch of woeful incompetents. no wonder the post office is going out of business if it's staffed by dolts like those.

good grief friskeypeter, what an awful, awful, awful time you must have had, having to buy tickets from the man at the station. how DARE he refuse to sell you a discounted fare during the peak morning rush hour!!! i hope you told him you had a GOLD card!

it is like a cross between peckham rye and a garden. the amenities are good. it feels safe until approx 11.40pm.

maybe they are more scary to adults or to kids? maybe kids take them in their stride and are not particulatly disturbed by them ... but by the time we are adults we recognise how jarring and different they truly are, with their ridiculous clothes, trowelled-on make up, ghastly bright colours, funny hair, etc. and that's why it was the adults of ED who were running around panicking and getting hysterical during the recent clown outbreak, rather than the kids who were the actual targets of the clowns >:D<

I like Pandora's advice. Notice how she HASN'T got a heading entitled 'Hobbies and Interests'! It makes me want to SCREAM when I get to that bit on people's CVs. If you're stuck for space, references can also be eliminated - they're normally only required for successful candidates and you'll probably be asked to supply details if/when the time is right (although if you have some impressive referees then I guess it's good to keep them in for showing off).

how long before they go the way of the daffs?

many of you are clearly not the target audience for these team-bonding sessions. you sound like the kind of people who hate your jobs (or at the very least tolerate your jobs due to the payout you get at the end of the month), don't particularly like the people you work with, and have no desire to get to know them better. fair enough. believe it or not, there are some people who do not share this outlook. yes, you probably dismiss them as the brown-nosers, the lickspittles, and the corporate whores. but some people quite like their jobs and quite like the people they work with. these kinds of exercises can help encourage a little more of such bonhommie. shock horror, yes, the ultimate aim is to improve the way you perceive your job, work harder and stay with the company.

Photos of Max Mosely and Amy Winehouse are about as much public interest as children at the Horniman park.

whilst riding my bike down lordship lane, I was horrified to note an old male clown furtively taking my picture....

i am getting bitten to pieces by these things too. people at work must think i have flees, given the amount i am itching and scratching. i keep meaning to put repellent on in the evenings but always forget. i am finding that i am getting particularly badly bitten near grass and fields/parks.

hmmm, i'm more intrigued by bread of life now than anything else.

sorry! :)) Seriously though, a polite but firm no and then put the phone down on the cold caller is all it ever takes. DO NOT ENGAGE! they will appreciate it as much as you do.

I am sceptical that the bus driver held it up the light for about 30 seconds, as the OP says. Are we seriously talking about holding it up for a full 30 seconds.....or just holding it up for two or three seconds?? let's clarify! Yes, the bus may have taken a little longer to reach its final destination as a result, but i side with the other poster who has indicated that the bus driver is correct to be making sure that he is checking tickets. most people seem to have oyster these days, so if there is a small # of times that the driver needs to check paper tickets, then no problems. for what it's worth, in my cash-strapped student days (when paper tickets were far more common), i used to be able to travel around on my one-week bus pass for months at a time before i ever felt compelled to change it. maybe one or two times that a driver ever caught me out and wouldn't let me board. think how much revenue is lost in situations like this, or non payment on bendy buses, and think how this in turn impacts the rising ticket prices, shoddy services, reduction in frequencies, etc, etc that we all whinge about.

the telephone preference service (TPS) does not prevent you from receiving cold calls. it means that your are removed from 'lists' of names/numbers, but it does not prevent companies from using random digit dialling, and randomly coming through to your number. just wanted to point this out - i spent many tedious evenings/weekends working in a market research call centre as a student and often found people getting extremely irate and upset, wondering why they were receiving calls when they were on the TPS, and not believing me/listening to me when i tried to explain the above!

there was somebody walking down your road this morning though, so I hope you haven't spoken too soon.

waitrose or simply food ;-)

maybe there's always a half hour queue because all the others in the vicinity have closed down so everyone has to go to the same one! Edited to add: The annoying thing is that the stamp machine never seems to work....i only ever need to buy stamps very infrequently, so never want to buy a whole book, just the individual stamp. of course, when the stamp machines dont work, this can mean queueing for ages and ages just for a bloomin 40p stamp.

maybe i should've found some way to exercise in the playground ... it was empty, as all the kids were on the gym oh well, i guess it does look a bit more exciting !

Cassius Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > cate Wrote: > -------------------------------------------------- > ----- > > Kids under 12 aren't supposed to go on it. I > saw > > loads of 3/4 year olds the other climbing and > > using stuff without any supervision. > > Next thing some child will get hurt and it will be > closed down. Really annoys me, as you hear the mummies say to their toddlers 'darling this isn't meant for you, it's for the grown ups,' yet they happily let the kiddies crawl all over the equipment. i think that there was a similar thread earlier where one poster even complained that the moveable parts of the equipment were not safe for kids(6)

..but dont go on a sunny weekend otherwise it will be crawling with mummies and kids and you won't get a look in

... plus I don't think for one minute that this would reduce the amount of junk menus that come through the letterbox anyway. the restaurants wouldn't cease the littering - they would be bombarding us from more angles :'(