JoeChuff

andrea is indeed amazing, glad to see her stall is featured on google street view!

GPs are often shocking when it comes to treating depression, I suspect many of them don't believe in it. Get yourself down to the Community Mental Health Trust (CMHT) on Lordship Lane. You may need a GP's referral, in which case just go in and demand one. Key thing is, you are much better off getting advice on mental health issues from a mental health specialist than a GP, and the NHS does provide for this. (Just to defuse any future "why are you bashing GPs" arguments, I am sure that there are some GPs who are excellent at treating mental health issues and take a real interest in the subject. However getting referred to a CMHT vastly increases your chances of receiving the right treatment from a knowledgeable and sympathetic specialist.)

hi sorry if wording offended, it came from a newspaper article by Julian Baggini, I just copied and pasted i think it's driving not so much at thriftiness per se but at the new opportunity for Guardianistas to impress their friends via the medium of thrift by tapping into some romantic notion of austerity or linking cost cutting back to Guardianista hot buttons - e.g. "I'm taking a sewing class at the WI, why keep throwing clothes away?" - WIN "I've cut my Amazon spending in half, after all it's important to support our local libraries" - WIN "Restaurants are so over-priced, we've started holding more dinner parties/board game/bridge nights" - WIN "No foreign holidays this year, we're doing a historical walking tour of London instead, y'know, you can live here for years but never really *see* the place" - WIN "Who wants to pay 3 quid for a pint of Carlsberg? I've started drinking ale, it's cheaper and much more flavoursome, and it's important to support England's ale-making traditions" - WIN but "Frozen food's actually not that bad, and if you go to Somerfield right before it closes you can get it at reduced prices" - FAIL "When I go to the pub, I just buy a coke and then slip some vodka in from a bottle in my purse when no-one's looking" - FAIL

"Thriftifarian" (noun. colloq. derog. Also thriftafarian. A middle or upper class person who takes virtuous pleasure in making selective economies they do need to make, esp. during times of recession). e.g. WR -> Sparks any other examples?

hyacinth bucket

For what it's worth, a Detective Inspector based in Southwark once told me that this practice of encouraging prisoners to fess up to crimes they didn't commit in order to boost stats does go on, although he seemed to imply it was more about getting one's sentence reduced or a conjugal visit than a direct cash payment.

there are some seriously fit doctors working there

Quaywe: you posted this as a windup after reading the JMB thread - do I win a prize?

> I warrant that the value of goods in this shop far > outweigh those in any of the above mentioned > Clapham/ED boutiques! are you trying to put together a job? ;-) finally just in defence of my fellow whingers, i'm sorry if people get offended by me slagging off their tastes, shops and way of life. it is after all a free market. please bear in mind though that we don't necessarily come on EDF for democratic debate to decide the future of our high street - it's just a good place for some of us to let off steam and complain about the inevitable. i love you all really.

i'm thankful it wasn't Armani Junior! The first time I saw one of their ads I thought, "the terrorists are right"

calm down boys!! james - people like you and me just have to accept the fact that we've lost. it is a third-rate battersea, it's beyond saving. just as us coming in got rid of all the chavs, the claphamites coming in are getting rid of us. there are other parts of london where our consumer needs will be met, it's time to find them and move to them. makes me sad cos i love this place but that's London for you.

fair enough

sorry but this whole "if you think it would be so great, why don't you start it yourself" argument that always gets trotted out is a little childish. although you are right, "alternative" shops are less likely to succeed, because there aren't as many "alternative" people in ED as there are YMs - that doesn't make it invalid for them to complain about this situation, however.

Marmora Man Wrote: > Criticise quality of goods / services by all means > - but not the shop itself or the owner. If it's > the wrong thing in the wrong place it will fail. I think we all basically accept that we live in a free market economy - i don't think any of us who object to the new shops are taking some kind of ethical / moral stance, it just offends our eyes to see these tacky places on our high street and we are exercising our free speech to say so. I'm not saying what's happening is unfair, I'm just saying I don't like it. James' original post didn't say "I hate cushion shops let's ban them", he expressed disbelief that there is apparently no market for veggie bars / record shops etc in ED. Maybe if enough of us complain about the new shops and say that we want X or Y instead, some entrepreneur will open a veggie place etc.

I'm with James and Snorky on this one. Of course in a free market consumerist society people can spend their money on whatever they want. I just wish there weren't so many of them spending so much on such crap. Also I have to just repeat, Jojo Maman Bebe is the single most obnoxious shop name I have ever heard. The more I think about it, the more sick I feel!

"Jojo Maman Bebe" is the single most obnoxious shop name I have ever heard.

given that mother & baby screenings are, in practice, screenings where attendees are exempt from the commonly-accepted social duty to remain silent during a film out of respect for fellow cinema-goers, surely every screening at the Peckham multiplex is effectively a mother-and-baby screening?

i agree, one night of relatively tame mischief is not worth getting upset about. there's almost something romantic about the tradition of washing eggs off your windows the first weekend of every November. (sorry I'm bored and hungover at work and commenting on virtually every thread!!)

I went to Mirash for the first time in ages on Saturday night, I loved it. I actually quite like the decor, it suits the place. It's a shame so many otherwise decent places suffer from that weird, library-like atmosphere peculiar to curry houses: everything muffled, apart from tinny Indian music, the lights too bright - it can really take the momentum out of an evening. Curry Cabin is one example - great food but I find myself lowering my voice when I eat there, for some reason. Didn't find that with Mirash. Pistachio Club is also a good stab at a curry house with more modern decor, although I always regret eating there the next day.

true story: my girlfriend (sorry - Mrs Joe Chuff) was walking down the street on Halloween night where some kids were egging a house, and overheard some little Tarquin say to his mate "what a waste of eggs. they could have made an omelette!"

i reckon the trick to not getting your house egged is to give the kids eggs, on the condition that they don't use them against your house ;)

the cockney girls who work in Threshers are bloody hilarious. I don't go in often but when I do they are always having loud conversations taking the mick out of each other etc. I get the impression some of them turn up to hang around and have a laugh even if it's not their shift, as there always seem to be three people manning a tiny shop.

mockney piers Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > get there early, it gets very very very busy. > I'm thinking of watching it from The Florence, > where hopefully the view won't be too obscured by > trees and the fence. me too - have a sneaking suspicion everyone in Lambeth will be doing the same though!!

Muttley Wrote: > I like the fact that the person > running a shop is in it for the long run, not some > trainee who's here today, gone to Clapham branch > tomorrow. fair enough.

Muttley Wrote: If another > stationer moves in, it will probably be a chain. > Goodbye Ralon, hello Rymans? I hope not. I find this attitude a trifle confusing. I'm definitely pro-local trader, anti-chain if the local trader is offering something extra that a chain can't - even if that is just a unique atmosphere. But when it comes to buying paper, I am really quite happy with bland uniformity - in fact it's kind of what one looks for in stationary! If they are selling a generic product with terrible service, let them fold.