Applespider

Will be a pain when I cheat and buy shopping at the foodhall in John Lewis - was so much easier walking round to first stop and sitting all the way home even if it did take a while. Lackof nightbus going along Oxford St will be a pain though. I suppose at least the Victoria line isn't shutting at 10pm this year so there's an alternate easy route home pre-midnight. What are the odds though that the 176 never regains the TCR to Oxford Circus part of the route? I'm sure I read that they were trying to cut down the buses going along Oxford St to stop congestion. To be honest, since they halved the number of bus stops, it's been a bit of a lottery figuring out which bus to get on to get to the store you wanted. It's easier and quicker walking though unless it's a particularly wet day.

Also make sure that you have motion sensor lights on the outside and that they're working. Burglars don't like lights coming on apparently - I'd just bought the bulbs to replace when we were done in Jan. Then the modus operandi was to choose a communal door which just had a basic Yale, buzz the buzzers to see if anyone was in. If not, jimmy the lock, close it behind you and know that you can make a noise kicking down doors and no-one will see/hear. And they started from the top (which surprised me) since then if the bottom floor came back, they might not notice anything suspicious and give the thieves time to get out. We've now got an extra lock on the communal door too so that hopefully it will make it harder. Thoughts go out to you - it's a horrible experience to come home to.

So where would you buy a bull's pizzle? I'm tempted to get one for my sister's retriever for Xmas just to horrify the rest of the family...

Nope - it used to work when the 176 and the 12 stopped nearby each other and you could 'hover' between stops and get one whichever came first. But no longer - you have to place your bets and go for one or other - or stand on the corner of Oxford Circus and then sprint down Regent St or along Oxford St to Borders. I've given up and usually just hop on the Victoria line to Brixton and then onto the P4. Buses are getting worse in the mornings though - there are 5 bus routes scheduled to stop at my stop (all of which are schedule in 8-12 minute timeframes according to the timetable) and in the last few weeks, I've waited well over 10 minutes for any one of them to show up. The temporary traffic lights at the top of Court Lane aren't helping matters but this is before they hit the traffic there.

Yup... that's the Gail's bread I'm thinking about. It really is worth the price!

Gail's is a bakery in East London that make some gorgeous breads - plain and then interesting mixes (like sourdough with baked apple or Rye with fennel seeds). I found them in the Waitrose that lives in the basement of John Lewis in Oxford St after I popped in a for a pint of milk after some shopping. Handily it was around 7ish when they'd just reduced them all to half price. Think they sell them in a few other delis/supermarkets etc but sadly, I don't know of any locally.

I bought a loaf on Saturday (along with a rather nice mincepie) and was slightly shocked by the price. Not least since they didn't appear to have any signs on the bread shelf (or the cakes) to identify what they were and how much they were supposed to be. I know you can ask but on a busy Saturday with a long queue, I'd have preferred to make my choice in advance. The bread was quite nice but prefer those gorgeous Gail's loaves that are expensive but still cheaper.

I'd rather have a Waitrose than a Simply Food. :-$ Just don't get the appeal of most M&S stodge - their jubilee strawberries and their sweet potato/lentil salad (both of which are only available in the summer) are the best things in it. And I really object to paying 10p an item more in a Simply Food as a 'convenience' charge. Small 'convenience' shops used to charge more because they didn't have the economies of scale that supermarkets had. Now most of them are run by the giants but still charge more. :X

I asked about the prospect of being able to see buses in realtime on a website last time I complained to TFL or at least a few more of those bus-stops with arrival info screens. They said that the new iBus they're rolling out (i.e. those talking buses that drive many of us nuts) had taken precedence but that once it worked for all buses (May 09), then they were going to look at how it could be used online etc. I want an iBus app for my iPhone.

If you can face a hike to Deptford, there's a fabulous Open Studios at Cockpit Arts on Creekside. Jewellery, knitwear, ceramics, glass, cards, home accs - and the EDD has a little on-site cafe for the weekend. It's not a Christmas market per se but they will have Christmas stuff.

Wood Vale on the Southwark side of the road but with an SE23 postcode so whether it's East Dulwich or Forest Hill depends on which public service I'm talking to!

Well, they built a pineapple in Scotland although not of concrete... http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/41/The_Pineapple.jpg/250px-The_Pineapple.jpg So far as the concrete house goes, I concur with the view that it's a damned shame and I hope the current owner doesn't see any profit from his cynical actions.

Sean, sorry, my earlier post wasn't clear about the 185 at Victoria. I've never not got on it at Victoria either. What I meant was that it's often so busy by the time it leaves Victoria with people standing (particularly if there hasn't been a 436 for a while) that it doesn't let people on on Buckingham Palace Road/ Vauxhall/Oval. I do manage to change at Camberwell most of the time. But on occasion I can't. Most recently one Thursday night a few weeks ago, I got off one bus at Camberwell and couldn't get on the 176 that arrived a few minutes later. A 185 arrived shortly afterwards so it wasn't too bad. But I don't particularly like hanging around Camberwell after 11ish - I'd feel safer and more comfortable with getting on at Waterloo and not changing. It just gets particularly frustrating when you see lots of buses on other routes stopping at that stop which are more frequent and less busy! At peak times, why don't they shorten some of the routes where they end up with particular congestion? With the 176, they could run some to Trafalgar Square/Aldwych rather than having them all going to Oxford Circus/TCR. That would avoid that hellish run along TCR/Charing Cross Road which can take longer than the rest of the route and mean that there was some room on them by the time they run along the Strand/Waterloo? Changing behaviour is one option - I get off peak trains at Peckham Rye rather than Denmark Hill since it's infinitely easier to hop on a 363/197 than hang around hoping that a bus with space might come along there. And I use a gym in town since that allows me to delay my journey home til the worst of the rush is over. But sometimes, it would be nice if stuff just worked as it's supposed to rather than having to make accommodations. And yes, the buses pre-8 are infinitely quieter but please don't tell everybody! ;-)

I complained a few weeks ago too about both peaktime buses and the fact that the 176 doesn't seem to have non-peak hours. There have been a few 10pm weekday evenings where you can't get on a 176 at the Strand or Waterloo which seems ridiculous. And the number of times that the 185 leaves Victoria packed to the gunnels in the evenings mean that it regularly leaves people standing too. I got a similar response minus the bit about there being no current plans to increase services. The 185's increase in service just restored it to the level it was at before the last company went under rather than adding more services. I see what you're saying about swapping but sometimes there's no guarantee that there would be room on a bus at the last 'swap point' as I've discovered to my cost at Camberwell Green on occasion.

SeanMacGabhann Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I travel every year to Edinburgh and always get > the train I'd agree with this particularly over Christmas since it makes travelling with parcels and presents so much easier. Not least since you then don't have the issues with fragile/liquid gifts etc which I can get around on the way up there when I'm playing Santa but which most friends/family don't remember when giving me pressies! Book it early enough and you can get a first class return for about ?80 which is about the same as many flights. Airport wise - Gatwick is better. Plus they don't seem to have the fog problems that often cause havoc at Heathrow in December. The last 2 years, BA have ended up cancelling most of their short-hauls immediately before Christmas

There's a big one primarily for ex-Pats at The Light on Shoreditch High St according to a Texan friend of mine. No entry charge and a late licence.

I keep my iPhone in one of those iPod socks that I had lying around so that it's easy to get in and out but isn't entirely loose in the bag. So far, no scratches. If you left it loose, I suspect you'd get scratches on the plastic back but since the front is glass, it should survive better. Stylus - the advantage is that you can still use all the functionality with gloves on. The disadvantages are that you have an extra thing to lose and that you tend to only be able to use the phone with two hands unless you have a surface to lay the phone down on. Probably one handed for calls but think you'd need both to text. I like being able to text one handed while walking if I need to.

My only worry about the N96 (while I agree the specs are fantastic) is the S60 operating system it runs. I found with my N73 and then with my N95 that by the time it was 6 months old, it was driving me batty since the OS slowed down so much and it would randomly stop certain applications running (e.g. resizing pics to send as MMS) for no apparent reason. I've got the iPhone now. The battery life isn't great (I charge it every other night) but I do use it far more than I've ever used any other phone since the applications you can get for it are so numerous. The camera is adequate but if I want good pictures, I take a proper camera out with me in any case. It doesn't have MMS - you send email instead and pick up MMS from a website but Internet access on it is excellent, the map features are very useful and it's very easy to use all the functions on it. All in all, I love it and wouldn't swap it for anything else at the moment. One other thing to note on any touch phone though (as we approach winter) is that they won't work with gloves on!

I'm obviously a freak. I always say good morning to the driver and nine times out of ten, they reply. Unless it was an incredibly crowded bus though, there's no reason for being such a jobsworth at that time of night. I've just had a reply from London buses after complaining about how busy the 176/185 routes are. Unfortunately, they just said that they'll pass the comment to the department that schedule bus timetable survey reviews. Ah well, I tried!

If you're willing to hop on a bus to try Omrith, then Kafe La down on Perry Vale behind Forest Hill station is a good bet too. You can taste the spices rather than just the heat and I was v pleasantly surprised last time I wandered in.

mockney piers Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I so hope you're spanish Do?a Maria Manzana-Ara?a > Gonzalez. Sadly not although I'm tempted to use that as a Facebook name should I ever sign up!

Mine's the English translation of my surname - nothing to do with a love of either apples or spiders although I quite like both.

Then again there are also nice bus drivers like the one driving the 185 this morning who was about to drive off but opened his doors again to let me on when he spotted me running along. I did make sure to smile and say thank you. The smile and the kind words go both ways - bus driving can be pretty thankless. I'm however one of those freaks who quite likes hopping on a bus rather than a cab. I'd far rather have the option of people watching/reading a book than making conversation with a cabbie and paying for the privelege of listening to their rants. And perhaps I'm on different buses but the majority of folks on them seem perfectly normal as opposed to the dregs being suggested.

Jubilee is only suspended North Greenwich to Stratford so train to London Bridge and then Jubilee line is probably best.

James, wasn't meant to be personal but since you said you'd only heard that there were some bigger places up there, it did sound like you weren't particularly familiar with the area yourself. I'm not sure whether you need a degree to know anything about transport - but I have one and I'll continue to disagree with you. Sure, it's 5 minutes further along from the Plough or 10 minutes along from Goose Green but aside from the 37 if I want to go to Putney, I'm not entirely sure what I'm missing out on where I am. I at least have the option of the P4 to get to/from Brixton and the wonders of the Victoria line which gets me to a point where I can pick up cross-London routes (e.g. to Putney too). The 363/63 gives me a direct bus route to Kings Cross. I'd rather spend 10 minutes on a bus with a seat in the mornings than standing on LL watching buses go past because they're full. And, let's face it, most mornings the bus situation on the main part of LL isn't pretty. On the majority of mornings, the 185/176 that I'm on at 8ish will ignore several stops on LL or only allow very limited passengers on. Forest Hill has as good links as East Dulwich station - and West Dulwich offers a direct route to Victoria too. It's not any further to walk down the hill from Wood Vale to Forest Hill as it would be from Franklins to East Dulwich station. In the evenings, I can be home in less than 30 minutes from the West End - that's not 'rubbish' in my experience. I'm truly not trying to 'big-up' the area as you're assuming. I've already freely admitted that pubs/shops-wise it's a poor relation, but on transport, it's not as rubbish as you're suggesting.