BrandNewGuy

LOL - I'm not having to go a business trip to Amsterdam. Which is bittersweet :-)

As it turns out, both Mrs BNG and I will be able to attend on the 13th.

DulwichFox Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Do not know if they have Free range.. The term > Free range is virtually meaningless. > Any animal in an enclosed shed that can see > daylight through an opening can be called free > range. > Even if the place is so crowded they could never > reach the outside. > > Foxy Not quite true. For meat chickens, they must have outdoor access for at least 8 hours a day. For egg layers, they can be indoors all the time, but are not caged.

That's going home from work for the weekend, not off to Ma and Pa's country pile. Though it is very lovely there...

Buit as you say, there is no evidence for double decker buses cuasing a water main burst, so the rest of what you say is speculation.

rahrahrah Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I think it's the same. Despite rising numbers of > passengers, we've not seen any increase in the > service for more than a decade (they have gone up > and down in that time, but never above the levels > they were originally at). So this part of London > got absolutely nothing from LB works and > associated disruption. Has anyone expected more then six trains per hour at rush hour? No-one's moved here with the expectation of the trains being more frequent, so if it goes back to our previous maximum and is reliable, I'll be fine with that. The whole point of the LB redevelopment is to change the nature of certain journeys, especially through services, to improve the network as a whole. Being nicer to people in East Dulwich is, in all honesty, not in the same league when it comes to justifying the investment.

"Sunshine on Leith" ? just spent a weekend in Edinburgh. Beginning to wonder whether or not it was worth it.

That's unfair. She was one of the first MPs to write to the (then) Rail Minister Claire Perry about the issue, she's in the All Party Parliamentary Group on Southern Rail and has continued to make well-argued representations on our behalf as well as highlighting the issue in the local media. Most business of government doesn't happen in debates in the house. In fact, it's a bugbear of mine to see those 'Look how many MPs turned up...' photos of the chamber. They show little or no understanding of what MPs and governments actually do. Which pretty much describes the woeful Canary 'news'. Edited to add that I didn't vote for Helen Hayes.

That's what I thought. They're going to start the service from Druid St SE1 from Oct 1st to Dec 31st and not serve north of the river. http://content.tfl.gov.uk/tower-bridge-bus-diversion-map.pdf

There were reports earlier of a passenger being 'taken ill' at South Bermondsey which caused lots of delays and some cancellations.

There really haven't been many cancellations since the last timetable change. Get the 08.51, 08.57 or 09.10 (there's no .13) and you'll still get there in plenty of time without having to think about changing or walking.

Aristide Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I'm not sure that the social mobility of the 50's > was purely down to there being 'room at the top' > > The war and war effort brought people together > more than any time before or since. Classes > working together for a common cause, I think > Thatcher may have just been a symptom of the > reaction against this... But did that really carry over much postwar? I'm not old enough to remember, but lots of people of my parents' generation regarded much of the 50s and 60s as "I'm All Right Jack" when it came to poor management, intransigent unions and woeful productivity ? very far from having common cause. It's a shame Thatcher didn't address the "poor management" question as much as she did the union issue.

Clickbait is the bane of the online world. The dirty truth is that online media owners don't know what does and doesn't work when it comes to online advertising, so they use clickbait to rack up massive page views, which they then desperately try to sell to whoever will buy, regardless of approriateness to the brand. Just look the The Independent ? a gracious almost boring newspaper turned into a ghastly garish superficial sewer.

pearl1 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > There's a little duck on Peckham Rye pond at the > moment that doesn't look like a mallard. It's much > smaller and has a whitish head with a darker cap. > Does anyone know what it is or is it just a > regular juvenile duck? It'll be a hybrid. Several duck species are very close genetically and can interbreed ? so you can get half-mallard, half-tufted duck offspring etc. Sometimes you'll get a mallard crossed with an escaped farmed mallard, which may have very different characteristics. Promiscuous lot, ducks :-)

I'm a no for the 13th, but I'll ask Mrs BNG.

No can do, alas.

Yes. Looks like BLM UK has succumbed to the most fatal error of pressure groups ? "piggybacking", described very well in another of my favourite blogs recently: "Piggybacking This is the insistence that any movement for social change has to make room on its agenda for all the other currently popular movements for social change, and has to divert some of its time, labor, and resources to each of these other movements. Start a movement for any one purpose, and you can count on being swarmed by activists who insist they want to be your allies. Some insist that they?re eager to help you so long as you?re willing to help them, some insist that you can best pursue your goal by helping them pursue theirs, some insist that theirs is so much more important than yours that if you?re a decent person you should drop your cause and join them, but it all amounts to a demand that you divert some of your money, time, labor, and other resources from your cause to theirs. Behind the facade of solidarity, that is, the social-change scene is a Darwinian environment in which movements compete for access to people, money, and enthusiasm. Piggybacking is one of the standard competitive strategies, and it really goes into overdrive as soon as your movement comes up with a plan to do something concrete about the problem you?re trying to solve. At this point, your allies can be counted on to insist that your plan isn?t acceptable unless it also does something to benefit their cause. You can?t just fix A, in other words; you?ve also got to do something about B, C, D, and so on to Z?and long before you get there, your plan has stopped being workable, because no possible set of actions can solve all the world?s problems at once." http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.co.uk/2016/08/learning-from-failure-modest.html

Burbage Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > BrandNewGuy Wrote: > -------------------------------------------------- > ----- > > Our rail problems have several causes ? the > > Thameslink upgrade and the associated > rebuilding > > of London Bridge being the main one that > affects > > congestion.However, this > > is unrelated to Southern's uselessness, which > > needs addressing urgently. > > Unrelated? Really? > > First, DfT are surely responsible for all of them. > The delivery of rail services is very much their > job. > > Secondly, and curiously specifically, there is a > Managing Director of Passenger Services at the > DfT's Rail Excecutive. This is Peter Wilkinson, > resident of Vienna and 'businessman with interests > in the rail industry' who draws at least ?250k > p.a. from the public purse, presumably in return > for some sort of responsibility for passenger > services, even if he has only seemed to annoy the > unions and splutter at train drivers' pay. > > The Managing Director of Passenger Services was > not, however, always the Managing Director of > Passenger Services. Before that he was the Rail > Executive's shiny new Director of Franchising, > brought in to smooth things over after the West > Coast Mainline fiasco, and whose first major > success was the creation of the three-in-one > Southern franchise, with its fat fee payable > independent of fare revenue or even, as we've > seen, the presence of trains. > > So, perhaps not so unrelated after all. Especially > when you consider that he not only served a > near-four year stint at British Rail, butchering > it for privatisation, but afterwards set up a rail > consultancy with Govia as a client. > > It is, I know a small world. But sometimes it > looks a little smaller than it should be. Agreed that the current set-up is a entangled mess with government in the middle, but I meant that Southern's ongoing issue with training, staffing, sickness etc is not formally connected to the Thameslink/LB upgrade. Even in the best of all possible worlds, closing a number of the platforms at LB while rebuilding the station was always going to cause congestion problems.

8.20 this morning ? on time, seats to spare. Mustm't grumble :-) Our rail problems have several causes ? the Thameslink upgrade and the associated rebuilding of London Bridge being the main one that affects congestion. Until those works are complete in 2018, we're going to have problems. However, this is unrelated to Southern's uselessness, which needs addressing urgently.

Four carriages only on the 08.30. Useless.

Monday to Saturday, 11pm

Went in after 10 o'clock last night and scooped up lots of marked-down goodies. Might do that regularly...

We went for the first time this evening. The service was friendly, if over-attentive on asking us if we wanted poppadoms (three times) and slightly under-attentive in taking our order and serving. The food was fine, but I'm baffled why they have exactly the same menu as their sister restaurant on LL. I'm not one to moan about 'all the curry houses in East Dulwich', but it seems to me there's a huge opportunity for a more modern take on Indian food in ED ? tapas-style small plates, special tastings and food/drink pairings, a bar etc etc. There was talk of the former Veer Zara going that way, but that's clearly not happening now. Very frustrating, as it seems like an open goal.

It's confirmed here by Liam Hickey, who is is on the DHFC football committee. https://www.urban75.net/forums/threads/stewardgate-dulwich-hamlets-long-serving-servants-unceremoniously-elbowed-out.346629/page-16#post-14671891

February 1991, Hammersmith Odeon, Bob Dylan on the Neverending Tour. Heavy snow and bitterly cold. My mate Hippie Nick and I wandered along at 5ish to see if there were any cheap seats being flogged by the touts, who were taking a huge hit as no-one was buying. We'd check the prices, go for a pint and come back to check prices again, which were dropping and dropping. After five pints and about ten minutes before Bob came on stage, we persudaded one irritable tout to flog us two tickets for a fiver. We celebrated our bargain with a very large joint, went in and sat down. I was asleep within three minutes. Hippy Nick claims he saw the first two songs before he too nodded off. We were woken up by security after the last encore.