Huguenot

Well possibly - however higher birth rates are traditionally the province of families with lower employment rates, lower peak academic qualification and lower home ownership. In fact a comparable example of 'how ED was' might be Charlton: a similar social and environmental breakdown, but less well employed, less highly qualified, and birth rates almost 20% higher. If ED is getting 'claphamised' or 'islingtonised' then the brutal truth is that numbers of kids are more likely to be dropping not rising. The DINKY effect (double-income no kids yet) that we'd really anticipate in clapham-isation is sutained by the census. It's more likely that the view of ED as populated by baby machines is going to go the same way as the evidence on 3 wheel buggies and SUVs - it doesn't appear to bear up under scrutiny. It may be that higher-earning or higher qualified ladies are more willing to be social with the kids (p'raps spending that money?), instead of staying at home. More likely also is that ED is changing in a way reflected in the census: it's substantially more multicutural than the rest of the UK, it's educated, it's home owning employed people with a pronounced lean towards secularism compared with the average citizen. If we don't accept the figures it may say more about us than the figures :)) !!

In another moment of crashing interestingness, I sourced the attached pdf of East Dulwich Neighborhood statistics from the 2001 census! Cool huh! Highlights are: 10,840 individuals in 4,699 dwellings. We have no more kids (0-4 yrs old) here than the London average, but less than Southwark overall. We have 20% more 20-44 yr olds than London as a whole, and 40% more than nationally. We have 25% claiming to have no religion (not even Jedi) compared with 14% nationally. We're healthier than Southwark, London or National averages We're more employed than Southwark, London or National averages We're 10% self-employed!! There's only 588 post-school students! We're incredibly well educated (44% of adults degree+) 19% completely own their own houses 39% own their houses with a mortgage Enjoy!

Well it'll be in the 2001 census.... ;-)

I notice someone's just got paid ?ms to set up a lift sharing site (cars not elevators), which goes live today in beta form. Why don't we see if we can beat them to it?

Adult Friend Finder have a very effective personal profile...

hear hear

Is it no smoking outside as well? :'(

I guess so, since we can all see this, I'm sure that G&B have considered it as well. What I'm trying to suggest (and possibly mockney too) is that there may be logical reasons for this rather than just the assumption that they don't care about their customers and they want them to have a bad experience, or that they're daft. We weren't there, and we don't know the context, so I think it makes more sense to hold judgment rather than assume the worst :))

Well I would have guessed it's pretty clear why it happens... In the grand scheme of things a wine bar's profitability relies on the revenue developed per 'cover' (or chair) per day. If a bar is only half full, it's easy to serve water as it represents no 'opportunity cost' to the bar owner by depriving a potential spending customer from occupying the location. Indeed it may increase revenue as passersby will perceive a bar to be popular according to the number of people present rather what they're drinking - and they'll want to share the experience. As soon as a bar is full then a punter drinking water is costing the company money be depriving it of a spending punter's revenue. The potential trade off is that one non-spending customer may influence others to spend more, or to come back and spend more at another time. I'll be betting that this is the call of the manager depending upon how full the bar is, how many are waiting for seats, and how large the overall customer base is. Hence policy may vary. Fixed rules can sometimes seem illogical, and flexible rules can sometimes be misapplied. Either way there's plenty of opportunity to upset the punters, but also plenty of opportunities for badly handled logistics to put the bar out of business. If that happened it would be bad for all!

Good God, are there schools that only accept the name Edie?

No there's no law on the provision of potable water in pubs & bars, although it is a requirement to provide handwashing facilities when providing a loo. 1984 building regs set rules for loo provision, and EC law stipulates that this public supply should be potable, as is also the requirement in France & Spain. The water-buying habit's a legacy thang. There's a good article on the history of this here. Although apparently it will be mandatory to provide water over the bar in Scotland from 2009... BTW, do you know, there's only one public toilet for every 18,000 Londoners? They don't call me 'Mr. Interesting' for nothing.

Erm.. that's a question! Currently I do start-ups and turnarounds for media companies; sometimes for my own company, and sometimes for the big corporates. That's why I was in China last year. I've done a few SME business plans, and also done a reasonable amount of sitting on my bum. ;-) The usual thing I recommend is not to follow a fashion or go on a hunch, but to do the numbers first!

Casper I'm sure you're taking this all with the pinch of salt it deserves! :)) What we guys on this site want is pretty much of a muchness, we're a self-selecting research pool and as such have no relevance. We are not a straw poll of the 'average customer'. There's only one way to work out the possible market for your shop, and that's to settle yourself outside one of the many competitors and count the customers and the conversion rate. Do it on weekdays and weekends. Apply these figures to your own business plan, compare it with your fixed and variable costs and see if it comes out up or down. I really don't see that many customers in the kids shops. It would be difficult to persuade me that an additional shop is going to deliver the necessary profits to meet your dream! More successful projects seem to revolve around either small volumes of higher margin nick-nacks (otherwise known as 'expensive tat' on this site ;-)) or massive volumes of fashionably expensive lower margin goods (otherwise known as poncey restaurants instead of old fashioned boozers).

Going to be slotting in the photos next ;-)

Go to this map and scroll down the list of pubs on the left until you see the Vale, and then click on it - the correct blue arrow will light up!

Let me talk to some of my China sweatshop contacts - hopefully we'll get them good and cheap! ;-) Only joking! I'd be extremely impressed if we could pull that off. Someone could set up a stall outside Sainsbury's before people get in the store!

Here's something I noticed earlier... Original Antony Gormley Original Fractionater I think we should be told?

Well much as I wear the right kit my essential character always shines through:

The TV blew up! Whaaa....? 103 years of faultless service... pearls to swine etc. etc. :))

Mockers, me ol' china, you kno fule well that I believe that there are significant benefits in fisking for those for whom entering "rational debate or building a coherent argument" can be a challenge. Not really ;-) What's disappointing about fisking is that it's essentially parasitic. In its execution it dismembers constructive and considered discourse into broken phrases stripped of meaning and context. It rarely contributes to debate. I remember when Louisiana last did it to me she complained that she couldn't make sense of my argument - well she certainly wouldn't after fisking it into something resembling rabbit pellets. It's the literary equivalent of telling everyone else their plans for the Christmas Party are shit, whilst deiberately avoiding punting up any ideas yourself. ::o It looks clever, but underneath it everyone knows...

Click on the Clockhouse on the left hand side of this map

Godwin's Law is a manifestation of the concept of 'reductio ad absurdum' - the fact that extending a logical argument to the point that it delivers an 'absurd' conclusion renders the original argument invalid. In this example perhaps (I didn't see the original exchange) comparing shopkeepers with Hitler was absurd. Godwin's Law doesn't assume that every mention of Hitler is absurd, it just challenges the absence of rational thought that could draw such hyperbolic conclusions in inappropriate debates. Hence in principle it's not something that's imposed from the outside in, it's a humiliation that the debater heaps upon him/herself. Hence to hate Godwin's Law is strictly speaking to hate making a fool of yourself - nobody likes that, but most of us have the presence of mind not to blame someone else for it. Except me of course :)) Indeed we should be thanking administrators worldwide for covering up the moments of madness that would otherwise live in perpetuity to soil our reputations! I, for one, thank my lucky stars we have such a philanthropic bunch... ;-)

I believe (but could be wrong) that Stevenage have ordered a job lot of white shirts with red piping for their supporters shop pre-game. This may mean that these are the shirt of choice for the Final

Miss M, I believe that there are still tickets avaialbe for the FA Trophy final at Wembley next Saturday. Whilts I support Kiddie Harriers, Mockney supports St. Evenage. However, the Harriers play in red. I can assure you that it's absolutely a must see! We're taking a motley posse of 10

Hey Mogs - what's your rating on the ISC, we may have played each other?