Dogkennelhillbilly

Having sorted donations for multiple organisations: unfortunately, books, CDs, and DVDs are basically worthless now. Clothing is worth little and often poorly made. Punters do not hesitate to dump obsolete (a 1997 A level textbook?), dirty, and useless (a broken plastic toy?) items on you, and it takes time and money to get rid of them. Thieves will steal donations from shops and bins. It is hard to whip unpaid volunteers into the Customer Service Automatons that "consumers" expect these days. If you sell the stuff too cheap, you can't fund the object of the charity; if you sell stuff too expensive, people moan that it's not affordable for consumers. If your target for "pathetic managerial ego" is the local charity shop, then you're gonna be really disappointed when you find out who runs multibillion dollar organisations like Twitter or FIFA or the Department of Health... Thank you for your donations. You are doing good by your donations. It is more equitable and sustainable than binning them. A song and dance to thank you may be a bit out of reach for the moment.

As to whether Soderberg is bourgeois - I refer to the Macmillan definition cited above of "typical of middle class people and their attitudes". Soderberg is just another arse-achingly boring coffee shop trading on the prejudices and aspirations of its milquetoast middle class punters (of which I would probably be one if I could tolerate their habit of adding cinnamon to everything). But what are you gonna do? People love caffeine and sugar presented a certain way... As to whether we are a more class-less society - I refer to this thread in the other forum to avoid this one being taken even further offtopic: /viewtopic.php?t=2290684

On a thread in the main forum, someone objected to my polytechnic debating club charactisation of a smug coffee shop as bourgeois as obsolete because "Surely these days we're a far more class-less society..." I don't agree that the UK, London or East Dulwich is a classless society or is even heading in that direction. In fact, the long term picture is that we are heading in absolutely the opposite direction: income inequality is increasing and social mobility is decreasing. I have seen with my own eyes the houses of people living in extreme wealth and extreme poverty, less than 1500m apart in Dulwich. (And I am extremely grateful for my own privilege). It is true that we have the first BAME prime minister (after Disraeli...?), and it is true that the old signifiers of class (in race, dress, accent) are fading. This is not the England of the Cleese/Corbett/Barker sketch. But it is also true that Sunak was privately educated in an elite school and is part of the global 1%, and that there plenty of new class signifiers...just ask the yummy parents at Gails and Soderberg wearing Lululemon after they drop their kids off at private school on their Tern e-bike .. Am I too cynical? https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/social-mobility-in-great-britain-state-of-the-nation-2018-to-2019 https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-7484/ https://equalitytrust.org.uk/scale-economic-inequality-uk

White Eagle Appeal (allied with the Polish White Eagle Club in Balham) is sending truckloads of medical supplies to hospitals and other aid to NGOs in Ukraine every week. Used clean crutches, wheelchairs, frames etc gratefully received at White Eagle Club, 211 Balham High Rd. http://whiteeagleappeal.org/ Having said that, I thought there was a little area at the Southwark Reuse and Recycling Centre (dump) on Old Kent Rd where they were keeping medical stuff for re-use. Has anyone else seen that?

Seems a bit "dog in the manger" to want the government to ban dockless dropoffs and pickups for everyone else because you don't find it convenient as a user. That's like banning taxis because you prefer the predictability of finding a bus at the bus stop.

TBH, comrade, I'm not convinced of the accuracy of your definition of "bourgeois", either in a Marxist/Marxian sense or the vernacular sense, which both correctly describe Soderberg. But you obviously have strong feelings about it, so feel to imagine Soderberg described as "yet another coffee shop/bakery for the bourgeoisie", which I hope you find dogmatically acceptable. https://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/british/bourgeois_1 If Dulwich becomes plagued by as many Kulak-oriented shops (perhaps they would sell petrol cultivators, or yokes for oxen) as we have smug identikit coffee shops, I will come back to moan about the preponderance of kulak-oriented shops. Until then...

Good work! The operators should make it easier for us to report inconsiderately (actually, illegally - it is already against the law to block a pavement) parked bikes, so they can fine the lazy sods responsible. I had to pull over today and move a bike - some pillock had left it 90 degrees across a pavement. 🤬😡

Lime and Human Forest both have mobile phone holders on the handlebars of their bikes and scooters.

It is, but I've been in one. They're crap. The brand and food are bourgeois. We have many bourgeois coffee shops in Dulwich. Poundland is a business, but it is not bourgeois.

Crown & Greyhound is usually open. In fact, aren't pretty much all pubs open?

Meh - another bourgeois chain store. Soderberg is Nordic Gail's.

What I love about this conspiracy theory is that it simultaneously requires Southwark Council to be totally inept and a cabal of scheming geniuses.

There's going to be a dog grooming shop in West Dulwich next to mummies-just-dropped-kids-off-at-private-school favourite La Gastronomia. I've forgotten what the name of the poodle palace will be.

Apostolic Nuncio to Great Britain (Papal ambassador, if you prefer) Claudio Gugerotti enthusiastically endorsing Georgian wine in Dulwich Wines.

What kind of "absolute carnage", specifically? There are a lot of strikes on at the moment...

For the record: - if anyone wants to ban private car use by anyone except blue badge holders, I'm in favour - if anyone wants to fine the owners of bikes l3ft obstructing pavements (which is also an offence under ancient law), or just crush the fing things, I'm in favour

Not really. It's easy enough to have bike sharing without bike companies or users dumping them over the pavements. The adverse net effects of car usage in London cannot be solved by everyone buying different cars. That's a myth spread by the car industry to sell newer, bigger, shinier products. The "personal freedom" of car usage has never come with personal accountability for the negative externalities of car usage: the air pollution, noise pollution, and road violence is simply dumped on everyone in society. Private car usage is still massively subsidised - just look at the moaning about car owners being asked to pay their car on public streets! There is no alternative to reducing the amount of private car use in London and prioritising those who really need cars and whose needs can't be met by more sensible alternatives.

You might want both, but you can't have both. There's a limited amount of street space and a lot of people wanting to park there. You can have free parking, but you'll moan about not getting a spot because too many people (you included) want to park for free on your street. You can reduce demand and increase availability by charging for parking, but then it's not free any more.

0.37 x 5 days = £1.85 a week £1.85 x 52 weeks of year = £96.20 I pay £130.00 a year (went up this year from £125.00) I also pay: Road Tax Car Insurance Petrol - all time high still visitor permits for trades people and family/friends ... are there more parking spaces on my road? ... This council now wants to spend vast amounts of money to consult 1) there are 7 days in a week and 365 days in a year. You buy an annual pass, you don't get to exclude any days. 2) There's no such thing as road tax. Tax, insurance, petrol - none of that is for parking. You're paying nothing to park on the street at the moment. 3) there is a limited amount of space on your street, which is in one of the world's biggest cities with millions of cars in it. You want this parking to be free AND available to you whenever you want it. That's impossible. When you give something valuable away for free, lots of people want it. You can have one or the other, but not both. 4) yeah, agreed the council should consult less and just do stuff.

£130 annual charge mentioned above divided by the number of days in the year. HTH.

Without a CPZ, motorists pay zero to park their private vehicles on council streets. This one is...37p a day.

Surprisingly versatile actor Rula Lenska, enthusing about khachipuri at Kartuli (the Georgian restaurant on Lordship Lane).

What proportion of drunk drivers, scooter riders, and cyclists respectively do you think are arrested?

Maybe yes, maybe no, but misunderstanding where we are now won't help us get to where we want to go in the future.

Dockless scooters and bikes work off GPS, they have geofenced "go-slow" zones where the speed is automatically capped at about 8mph, the parking zones are all programmed in and (in theory), if you leave one randomly lying around, the app is supposed to dock you credit for not leaving it in a designated parking spot. Again, you are treating bikes and scooters as the same. They are not. There is no licensing regime or special trial for bike usage. There is no requirement in Southwark to leave bikes of any description in any particular place.