Huguenot

That is absolutely outrageous. I did hear of a similar scenario not so long ago, and it transpired that the vehicles had been purchased as an investment - this meant that he was using the public highway as a storage facility for a business proposition, which put him in breach of parking regs. He had to take them away... ;-)

Chortle! *Bob*, I must have misunderstood - you don't have to carry the bulky object on the 10min walk to the car, you can scamper like a spring bunny to the car completely unencumbered and then drive back and pick up said bulky object.... ;-) Then when your errand is complete you can return the streetcar and scamper back again. Wasn't it sweet of streetcar to come on? Did someone tee them up? Where's my reward for being such a loyal customer? Bah, humbug. I wouldn't have thought the CPZ affected streetcar, since they need dedicated parking bays (usually off-street) anyway. It doesn't seem the brightest thing to do, leave a hire car parked outside your own house, but if you did want to I'm sure we could petition the council for a CPZ exemption and since the objectives are the same I'm sure we'd achieve it!

There's also one on Overhill Road and another one 10 mins walk away in Nunhead. One in the village, two in Herne Hill etc etc. They've got a good investment programme, and they'll get more as demand goes up. To be honest it does feel as convenient as owning a car, with none of the hassle. Yes it's not always there at the exact time you'd choose, but then the other half borrows your own car from time to time... As a result I'm probably 3,000 quid up over 12 months compared with my own vehicle. That buys an enormous amount of strong continental lager, and an overbearing smugness! :))

Or sell the car. On the latest AA figures the cost of ownership far exceeds having a hire car several times a week. Guys like streetcar.co.uk have several local cars at a price of 4.95 an hour including petrol and insurance etc..! You can hire them on an hourly basis. Apart from saving on all of those things like depreciation, the 'shared' ownership would have massive benefits for the environment, and the world will look better without every street rammed nose to tail with parked cars. Next time you're making that car purchase, think of your children's future and ask yourself if you really need it. If I managed to survive the last 37 years without one, I bet you can manage the next! Habit, idleness and vanity aren't particularly good reasons to destroy our planet!

I reckon you'll find a vast array of different reasons based on the year that residents arrived. The relatively slow pace of urban regeneration in SE London meant that gentrification was slower to come to ED than places like Clapham, Balham and Brixton. The key restriction was transport facilities, the key driver was house prices elsewhere. Even when I arrived in '99 there weren't many yuppies to be seen (in the true sense of the acronym not the eighties prejudice). There were signs of white collar families recently moved into the area, but nothing like the three wheel pram fest we have at the moment. Socially facilites were poor with a great many run down or closed shops, no gym, dirty swimming pool, Sainsbury was mostly blamed for the breakdown of LLane, the church on Goose Green was falling down. From a pub perspective I was advised by longer term residents that my middle class dress sense and BBC accent would probably put me at risk in most of the local drinking dens except the EDT. I moved because I could just about afford a flat here, and didn't have troubles with transport as I worked on the Northern Line from London Bridge. Previously lived in rented accommodation between Streatham and Balham. The flat I got was in a very poor state of repair and I had to spend quite a lot of cash to make it habitable, similarly the house I bought 3 years later was semi-derelict even though it was already 2003, and even though it was adjacent to LLane. That's where I now live. You can PM me if you want to know the street name. All in all it was a pretty depressing place! So realistically I came because of house prices and transport, and in spite of everything else! Over the last eight years the first noticeable sign was the growth in the young second time buyer family market, which resulted in gastro pubs, and the gastro pubs attracted trendy bars which in turn attracted young urbanites into rented accommodation. The Red Ken inspired transport regeneration has done a lot to influence this. On the education front there's a pretty good range of facilities for primary age children, but there is virtually no provision for teenage boys - if that doesn't change young families will probably pe pressured out of the area by default. If you skim the other threads you'll see somewhat of a fault line between three or four different social groups, and I'd probably do a good job of describing them, but not on a public forum!!! ;-)

Hmmm, I feel we will indeed lose. Those chaps have been playing together for years and a couple of their batsmen would terrorise my medium/slow right arm action (even with its viciously dipping, swerving flight of course). However, we could take heart from the fact that they aren't strictly a Clapham team - the name came from a strangled pun on Clap Them In Thirds (some sort of musical term). However, just as The Madness of King George (III) had to be renamed for the yank market because those silly americans thought it was a half-arsed sequel of a sequel, they became Clapham Inn because nobody was prepared to play a 'thirds' team. It's an old tradition I believe, we renamed our thirds team the 'Tigers' because we couldn't get a game until we pretended to have a personality ;-)

I can't believe that you're protesting the tickets for blocking disabled ramps - what's your view otherwise: "f@ck 'em, they're cripples, they don't matter unless you're actually caught"? Thank christ we have a local council who is willing to stand up for disabled access - if your view is an accurate reflection then the community doesn't. I've been around unusually during the day for the past couple of months and I've watched the wardens doing a reasonable and responsible job ticketing people who park in the most dangerous, offensive and hopelessly cretinous ways. I've also seen them be attacked and had their tyres slashed by moronic f@ckwits, who see them as a legitimate target to express their personality disorders. As for you representing 'residents', you don't speak for me, and others like me who can't park outside their own house for fat-arsed chimps who can't be bothered to walk 100 yards to the shops. As for representing 'retailers', my experience is that the only people retailers want to park outside their shops is themselves, nothing to do with their customers. There are case studies after case studies proving that making shopping areas more pedestrian/bus friendly drives up custom, but retailers don't listen to them because they know it's a false objection. The hidden motive is laziness. Most of the 'direct action' aimed at the bus lane was barely concealed snobbery.

Normally it's 3 - I can't find any other confirmation of that mind. I think mockney'll be along for the second half, but I'll hopefully be there from the off!

For those that remember the enormous entertainment of singing 'you're french and you know you are' at Margate a couple of years ago, may I provocatively suggest that Hastings (the pink and bloo opponents tomorrow) are well and truly frogs? Margate is and remains nary but a poncy loser hanger-on in comparison with those garlic munching surrender monkeys... On the subject of monkeys, we may not be Hartlepool, but if they bring any ring tailed lemurs with 'em I don't think we should vouch for their safety. ::o

Well, the CPZ would do something about the car thing. The question is whether it's worth a fiver a month to rid yourself of the car thing?! Surely LWL, one may not barrack uncontrolled parking in one breath and then harangue the council for offering a solution in the next? ;-) At least the LT Beetles are clean, has anyone noticed the 'Man with a van' tramp steamers? Now there's a blight on a sunny day.

No???? Really?? Do you have a link to that story?

Intelligent design??? Marshmallow thinking, chocolate fingers.

Yes, agreed, but it doesn't title itself as "an indicative notion of the relative density of Starbucks in any given area" does it? It titles itself as a "map". Strictly speaking if one were to use rather dull mathematical terms it does have something to do with matrix mapping, but there's no evidence that the creator (let us call him "God" since we have little notion at this stage of his substance) had that in mind when he created it. On that basis God doesn't know anything about maps, and whilst some may reflect on this as a mysterious way, I for one have no faith in him.

On North Cross Road just along from ED and Grace and Favour. Nick nacks and kids stuff. The robbers must have been not local, or screwed up on crack if they thought that Willow was going to be flush with cash on a Wednesday at 5pm. Sympathies also to anyone who got dragged in to that mess.

Monday to Saturday 9am - 5.30pm Both the range of fish and the prices change daily based on availability. They get fresh fish direct from market daily. But from what I could see the fish was so beautiful it was downright sexy, and the prices seemed pretty middle of the road. Storekeepers seemed friendly and approachable but a bit exasperated by the number of punters coming in to 'just have a look'. :))

Right - I'll do down and find out!

It's definitely an issue Quaywe - although I believe that the reason we haven't enacted this regulation yet is that we don't also have regulations in place to prevent manufacturers replacing this bad-fat with another worse fat (e.g the old enemy saturated animal fats like 'Butter' [shudder - even sounds bad eh?]. Hence an appropriate period of research and consultation is underway. I don't think anyone thinks trans fats are either good for you or expedient. If I recall, they banned trans fats in NY, NY, but the knock-on effect wasn't anticipated.

Traditionally one would foment reveolution rather than ferment (which creates beer), but in this case Snorks I'm particularly impressed by the play on words from an ED perspective. I can picture an ED 'Shaun of the Dead' moment with the upright but demented citizens of ED viciously mixing grains and adding yeast... bag after bag, vat after vat with a relentless and deranged determination to overthrow the government by sheer weight of wort.

You b@$stard. My neighbour when I was a kid, Geoff 'divot' Burkimshire, used to own one of those, but whenever I went round he wouldn't play because it was "boring". He was a total $h1thead. He couldn't imagine what it was like to live in a family of teachers... Pretty rubbish name too, and I bet he's still got it, along with his allergies.

Wha..? Waddever...? You know how it is... goat bu@@ering hangover, take the rest of your life off.. :)) Snort... wheeze... ...snooze...

Dirty boys, get a room!

Yes, but Jezza they're not open at 3am when you're crippled by alcohol and looking to resolve a conversational dispute in an non-confrontational manner! Besides, if that were a St Reatham Superbowl you'd only be the victim of a 40-strong steamer gang mugging ;-) PS. Mincer Willy! Ho ho! Someone call Island - this has to be a winner!

Chuckle ...snooze....

Damn, I've misplaced the remote control... Ho ho Chortle Ho ho ho

Agreed, but even Carlito's Way was 93, best part of seven years after he used to embarass himself with Madonnita http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091934/