Applespider

trizza Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > The build outs into the road will just increase > congestion and, as a cyclist, I just hate them as > they reduce the available road space. Agreed - I hate them as a cyclist too. Particularly on hills where most cyclists will end up going slower in any case - we want more room so that you don't feel pressurised with a vehicle on the back wheel rather than less. Those raised entrances into streets aren't great either on a bike. Thanks for the links so I can send in comments in good time!

Hmm... that's changed then. I'm sure when I last claimed under it, it was in any 12 month period. Might be worth checking with Ofgem if it's changed or just badly worded on the British Gas site.

Keep track of when your power cuts are and how long they last. If you end up suffering 4 lasting more than 3 hours each over the course of a 12 month period, then you're entitled to claim ?54 back from the power company. They keep it fairly quiet and generally just talk about compensation after 1 18 hour outage but it's usually buried somewhere on their website - oh yes, and you need to claim for it. It won't just show up.

Suspect the etiquette is for people to avoid breaking or trampling them at all.

As most of you may know, the Times are running a 'Save our Cyclists' campaign after one of their reporters was badly injured while commuting to work. While I don't entirely agree with how dangerous they are presenting cycling as being, nor support some of their suggested options for making it safer, there's no doubt that they are helping to raise the profile of cycling safety. Their campaign made the recent cross-party Parliamentary debate on cyclist safety happen (the editor apparently called many MPs to ask them to attend) which I know that Tessa Jowell attended, at least in part. I wanted to draw attention to their latest effort though. They're trying to use crowd-sourcing to identify cycling hazards in London so that they can draw more attention to them and try to get them fixed. This has to be a good thing. They're looking for everything from pot-holes, lack of ASLs, disappearing cycle routes, metal manhole covers on corners to where gyratories have no provision. Definitely worth taking a mental ride through your cycle commute and noting down the places where you either have to have eyes in the back of your head, or where you know you have to do something different (illegal?) to make it work for you. Link to the Times Cyclesafety map

Gavin Edwards Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Still not a single "No" on our online survey. Possibly because some people don't want to give local politicians of any party personal contact details just to say no to a bus. You can count this as a no if you like and for the final question; I've not yet decided which mayoral candidate to support since none of them stand out.

Peckhampoet Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > My vote is for an improved P12 bus frequency and > how about a re-routing of the P4 - maybe it could > go along Wood Vale and link with the 63/363 > service there? Though that would mean the folk at > the top of the hill would lose a bus service. Now that is an excellent idea. It could follow the route of the 63, turning along Overhill Rd and up Melford Road before going along Wood Vale, over the hill and down to HOP before continuing to Lewisham. Yes, it would mean that those between the Horniman and the top of Forest Hill Road lost their link to HOP but since many of them are closer to Forest Hill Overground in any case, that might not be a deal killer. They also would still have the 185 link to Lewisham, the P4's ultimate destination. And, the route along Wood Vale and over the hill would be quicker for the P4 than the multiple sets of traffic lights it faces in going via the short stretch of the South Circular. Yup... rerouting the P4 rather than the 63 would get my vote too.

Saw one today at Victoria when I nipped out for lunch. I like it. I loved the old Routemaster for making London feel more special and unlike every other double-decker city in the world. I like this one for the same reason. It's still more or less a prototype so until we've got a sense of how many may be ordered so that the R&D costs can be offset and economies of scale reached, I don't think it's entirely fair to dismiss it out of hand for being a vanity project. However, if it does turn out to be a reliability, accident prone lemon and no more ever get ordered, then we may very well call it so in the future. I hope not though since it would be a pity that nothing else would every get through that would make London feel like a city where it's still possible to make obvious things like buses feel a little bit special.

the-e-dealer Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > As a commuter I look for the quickest route- I > think most do so a 20 minute walk rules out the > Honor Oak Route. > It takes about an hour for me to get to and from > East Dulwich to Central London each day . To play devil's advocate here, the quickest commuting route from East Dulwich to Central London is generally on two wheels (bike or motorbike/moped) rather than four. Interesting idea, Bic Basher, on the ideal of having a single decker route between Peckham and HOP/Brockley Rise although suspect we'd hit the same problem of space to turn around at Brockley Rise. Is there anywhere else either before Peckham or beyond HOP that people have a burning desire to go to that might better justify such a route while allowing it to be short enough to limit delays?

I've asked this before without a response but if there is an extension to the 63 then what would happen to the N63 which currently picks up the 363 route and runs through to Crystal Palace? Would it continue or would we lose the N63 service through to Crystal Palace? I'd also been led to believe that the stand at Brockley Rise wouldn't be able to cope with the numbers of 63s given the other services that already use it so would be interested to know how that problem has been resolved. It would be good to know that the appropriate feasibility studies on extending the route have been done rather than discovering post-election that we've just been used for political point-scoring since there's no practical way to actually extend the route.

Not to dampen your enthusiasm but I seem to recall that there have been some worrying posts reported here with regards to that route. Nasty experiences in the evenings for cyclists with group of youths attempting to push them off, stick things through their spokes or put a rope across the path so they can nick their valuables. Might be safer waiting for the lighter nights before taking that particular cut through; it's a lovely route at weekends and during the day. Having said that, I can't recall any recently so perhaps the problems have stopped.

I'm desperately trying to remember the name of the lodge I stayed in a few years ago in Stowe, Vermont but it's escaping me. There were lots of lovely looking places there though and the little town was picturesque. We went to a place where they made cider (forgetting that in the US, proper cider is hard cider) so were a little disappointed. And the other thing near there is the Ben & Jerry's factory which was fun to go round. Beautiful part of the world though particularly if you travel on the highways rather than freeways (not that there are lots of them up that way) and stop in smalltown America for a bit. Would suggest a trip along the Maine coast too from Boston. Again gorgeous coastline and lots of lovely restaurants with very cheap, very fresh lobster. Plus it's always amusing to see lots of streetsigns pointing the way to Scarborough and Yarmouth.

So long as the new puffin actually stops traffic regularly enough that pedestrians don't get tired of waiting, it should work better than a zebra which on busy roads can end up causing congestion. Kings Road is full of zebra crossing but there was one particular one (near Waitrose - sorry for mentioning the W word) which they eventually turned into a puffin crossing since barely one car could get through before the next pedestrian stepped on to it. It did help the traffic flow but was also timed (at least originally) so that pedestrians didn't have to wait more than 20-30 seconds for it to change. Pedestrian crossing timings do drive me batty though particularly when they take an age to change and there's not all that much traffic - or where the traffic is heading for a junction and will sit in a queue in any case (a la the new one at Denmark Hill station)

But rahrahrah, there's one in Beckenham which isn't that far in a car and would be bigger than anything in the Old Bank. And they sell Faux Gras rather than Foie Gras which apparently is made more ethically. Feeding them more but by allowing them unlimited access to grain rather than stuffing a tube down their gullets.

Eeesh - I've been single too long. I started reading this assuming you were talking about Shrove Tuesday for interesting pancake recipes which made the first few posts sound very odd...

Loz Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I've got a spot in the opening ceremony!! > (Provided I can attend a huge heap of rehearsals.) And me three!

I suspect they work shifts in the Park (at least in the summer) and sometimes it seems to depend on who it is as to when the gates shut. Sometimes, they are bang on time and other times substantially later. In the summer, I cut through the park from the main gate to the farthest South Circular gate on the bike and occasionally wonder whether I might end up shut in. So I do always appreciate when they close the main 'in' gate before they start on their rounds to close the others. I can't wait for the lighter evenings - it's so much more pleasant cutting through the park than braving the South Circ. I'm struggling to remember if I read something here a while back about the same workers closing the gates in multiple parks (Peckham Rye and Dulwich) which might explain some of the delays. 3 hours does seem like a long time although there may have been some emergency that we're not aware of that easily explains it.

That's brilliant - and actually has the added advantage of being useful for pedestrians as well. One problem may be that drivers try following it too which isn't going to work so well on one-way streets that are two-way for bikes. bon3yard - I can't tell you how often I've tried following some of the little cycle signs only to arrive at a dead end with no obvious way to go. There's one particularly good one if you're coming back from Beckenham Junction which sends you through the railway station complete with taking your bike up/down stairs to get through the underpass.

toffeeapple Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I was hoping to keep the original surround which is > sound and install double glazed sliders as > Frazer71 suggested. All 3 double glazing companies > told me this was not possible though. If any one > knows this to not be strictly true, please let me > know, it may be that it is simply something that > they don't do. That should be possible. I recently had the Sash Guy (number is on the EDF somewhere) refurbish all my windows. For one of them, I needed a new sash slider and I got quotes for both single/double glazed sashes that would fit in the original frame. One thing that can bump the cost up apparently if you do double-glazed sashes is that you then need to buy new counter-weights too since the new sashes are heavier than the original. Sure Guy (the Sash Guy) would come round and give you a quote for nothing so you could find out for yourself.

I didn't realise they actually caught burglars these days. On the occasions where I or neighbours have been done over, we've never heard of anyone ever being arrested for it at all, let alone put in prison.

My sister is climbing Kilimanjaro next month and has to raise x amount of cash. She decided to put in herself what she would have spent on a holiday this year and has let people know that she's not expecting them just to subsidise a 'jolly'. She's found that cake sales at work bring in most cash. People don't mind paying ?1 or ?2 for a slab of rocky road or a good cupcake when they know it's for charity and they're getting something out of it! - and you can do that on a monthly basis even to the same people. She's also done a raffle with the prize being a Christmas cake or sponge cake. If you work in a big office, try borrowing a trolley and sell it as a 'cake at your desk' service. The local bingo halls let her do a collection on a Saturday morning to get some cash. Raffles and sweepstakes can work well - you could ask a local shop if they could donate a prize if you don't have or can't make anything suitable. We raised cash for the RNLI recently with a sweepstake where you created a poster with 50 squares on it and sold each square for ?2 - then you randomly picked a 'winning' square who got ?50 and the RNLI got the other ?50.

To actually buy and download them, I think it's just iTunes. The various TV catchups are all streaming only. If I'm going for a flight or somewhere without wifi, I tend to just rip a DVD or boxset and load them on. I use Handbrake, a free Mac app, to get them to the right format and then load them onto the iPad. A few good books might be worth loading on too - and perhaps some silly games to waste time like Mahjong/Solitaire etc Hope that you're not in for too long and that you get well soon.

WR Beckenham will indeed deliver to East Dulwich now. 2-hourly slots rather than Ocado's one hour and the website isn't as slick but it works pretty well. Their substitutions are much better when they have to make them. Oh - and the delivery slots are free if you spend ?50. And since I also work for JL (there seems to be a few of us), it also lets me get my discount (in a roundabout way) rather than using Ocado.

Yup - watched it with the family and thought it was excellent. I hope they make a series of it.

No idea on the GPS bit since haven't used mine for that. I have an iPad 2 but got the one with 3G (a 3 sim that costs ?15 for 3 months or 3GB of data). My iPhone tariff doesn't allow data tethering and I did think about buying a mifi dongle and just getting the wifi iPad. If you are primarily going to use it at home or in cafes that have free wifi, then wifi is fine. But I find myself using it in a car, at the hairdresser or out and about where there's no free wifi and then having the 3G option has been v handy. If your smartphone has tethering though, you may be able to use that instead. I've found mine most useful on trips where I am going to be on my own and for finishing reading or watching something in bed at night. Tis a luxury and I couldn't say I need it but do enjoy it