BrandNewGuy

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.

One brilliant 90s comedy drama was "Tears Before Bedtime", about a bunch of uptight Islingtonites and their nannies. With Samantha Bond, Lesley Manville, Adrian Rawline, Peter Howitt and a young Jessica Stevenson. http://www.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/4ce2b7d7891d9 Presumably the BFI have it, but it's never been repeated on the box, bafflingly. Streets ahead of "Cold Feet", which sort of covers some of the same terrain.

Elphinstone's Army Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > 6.30 - 6.45 Coop type q's, salad and veg section > on the left as you enter looked as though a swarm > of locusts had been through, and what's with the > wine section, red/white/rose, all mixed, if I want > a red Chilean I have to search? (just supposing) > and trolleys and boxes in the aisles? > How could M&S not realised the surge of interest/ > purchasing their long mooted opening would > engender and not stock up and no bread? This is > the optimum coming home tired and weary time > which > we all agreed would be good to collapse into M&S > for instant, nutritious, good range to choose > from, shopping. > > I know it is early days, but v disappointing. > > And why only 2 check outs and when paid, have to > negotiate the automatic pay machine customers, > it'snt exactly streamlined. > This morning three suits stood in the doorway, > shop floor staff busy, shop cold, 6.30, shop busy, > open until 11.00pm, for what? > > I wish M&S had asked a consortium or cross section > of locals, as we all can run the shop better than > they. It's been open for one day, tons of locals have been excited for ages and are shopping there at the earliest opportunity. Do you know how to avoid your re-stocking problem and have 'instant' food at your fingeetips in that situation? Have loads of trucks coming and going all day long. People will settle down, as will M&S's stock. Bet you a tenner the Co-op will still be crap in a month's time and M&S won't be. FWIW I'll be going there after everything settles down after this weekend. I suspect I'll be neither ecstatic nor despondent.

I'm not optimistic either, but I can live with the four-an-hour service. Southern Trains frog-boiling their customers...

I believe that all M&S Food Halls are operated directly, though some Simply Foods and other offshoots are franchises.

srisky Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Great news but I can't find the new timetable > online - anyone know if the 8.51 is running from > next week? > Thanks www.nationarail.co.uk has all the services restored from when they were cut back this summer, so yes the 08.51 is there. But double check at the end of the week, as the revised timetable has only been put online on a week-by-week basis. And I assume we'll be getting our 'old' six trains an hour service resuming when the station and lines are fully open in 2018.

Yep. The St Thomas St exits are a timesaver for me too. Concourse looks good, but the WHSmith looks like it's going to be pathetically small. We've had to put up with a poxy WHS at LB for years now and I was hoping for a proper big one in such a busy location. I have to pop down to the big WHS in E&C shopping centre at lunchtime to get my magazine fix...

Looks like we're getting our trains back: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-37225831 "Southern rail is to reinstate more than a third of the 341 daily services it axed earlier in the summer to provide a more reliable timetable. The 119 trains, nearly all in London, will run from 5 September. The operator introduced a reduced service in July after months of delays and cancellations, which it blamed on "unprecedented" staff sickness. Southern is in a long-running dispute with its guards and the latest 48-hour strike begins on 7 September. The reinstated trains include: All of its "metro" services in south London Sutton to Streatham via Wimbledon Twenty-six services on the West London line between Clapham and Watford Junction/Milton Keynes Guildford to Leatherhead"

Or "Trampled Underfoot": "Automobile with comfort Really built with style Specialist tradition Mama, let me feast my eyes, Talking 'bout love, Talking 'bout love..."