Gimme

Police still here and still all cordoned off. Forensics have gone and all blood stains apparently cleaned up. No sign of detectives. 11 O'Clock and all's well.

SOCO are roaming our street in plastic suits at the moment photographing the pavement. We're not allowed to walk on the pavements in Matham Grove. The detective doing the door to door said he wasn't getting much as most people were out. We're taking the attitude that it could happen anywhere so aren't worrying much. It must be worrying if you've got teenagers though. To quote Ian Rankin (the crime writer), when a body was found in a wheelie bin round the corner from his house in Edinburgh: "It's not the sort of thing you expect to happen round here!"

If you do go buying meat in Rye Lane, just make sure you avoid the streams of fishy water that run down the streets around closing up time.

Peckwich - I think there's a thread on people who have walked safely home just been started...

I've walked home through the streets of ED many times, every time in safety. It is not very interesting but hopefully makes those living in terror about the mean streets (see thread on Barry Road) feel a little better.

Contrary Mary - You tell me that the post I made saying that there was funding for traffic lights at the junction was incorrect. That's interesting given that someone pretty senior in Southwark Council told me that there was funding for this during a phone conversation I had with them. Having said that, it wouldn't be the first time someone senior in Southwark Council has been telling porkies. Another senior council officer told me that the council were pulling together a plan to make Matham Grove safer (from all the traffic that the council directs down Matham Grove to save them implementing a right turn on East Dulwich Grove/LL) and that hasn't materialised. In fact, Contrary Mary - taking a guess at who you really are - you may even have been there when they said that. I get the impression that Southwark Council talk a good game but the only thing they seem to be spending money on is low ramps on roads off LL which have absolutely no impact on car speed. In fact, why did they spend all that time and money on those ramps???

HonaloochieB - it may have been limp but I'm still young enough not to think of a 1970s comedian as 'Yarwood'. You are obviously in your 40s or 50s so how would a golden oldie like you know what whether street gang members can spell or not? How many gang members do you know?

Looking at the list of names, I was wondering if inability to spell is a pre-requisite for joining a gang? Can you imagine the initiation: Gang leader: "Rite, you gotta spell 'boyz, shoota, and wot' for us or you ain't joyning the Dulitch Boyz Croo"... Would-be gang member: "B O Y S" .... "S H O O T E R" .... "W H A T" Gang leader"Sorry cuz..."

Apparently the best Japanese in London is a small place up an alley just off Tottenham Court Rd (according to a Japanese colleague). That's probably the place SKS is talking about. If not, then guess what, there's another Japanese person out there who thinks that there's a place better than SKS is thinking of. Opinions eh. Just as a matter of interest - has Il Mirto been ruined by the fact that the secret is out?

Interestingly I've been discussing this question over the last year with Southwark Council traffic planning dept (in the context of them breaching their Southwark road safety strategy by sending traffic down Matham Grove instead of allowing a right turn into Lordship Lane from ED Grove). They are apparently considering the traffic light option (and recognise that the crossing is an issue) and have found funding for putting a traffic light scheme in place but apparently the big sticking point is TFL because there is a bus lane on LL at that point (so for some reason TFL don't want the traffic lights as it impacts their bus lane). It's bemusing as to why they should be objecting firstly because the impact isn't clear anyway and secondly because the bus lane seems to be more of a car park rather than a bus lane.

Re post above - probably guilty of not reading reviews of the new place on Melbourne Grove :-) It sounds the business. Anyway, the more the merrier!!! Bucci and Double Espresso were 20 metres apart and both did very well in Balham...

What East Dulwich lacks is a GOOD Italian restaurant. Si Mangia has good food but is a dreadful place and out of the way from the main drag. Locale is a nice restaurant but the food is not very good for the price. Haven't been to the new place but got the impression it was only a pizza place. We used to live in Balham and had the luxury of Double Espresso and Bucci on our door step. Both were run by Italians and in both you could get a very good plate of pasta for around ?8 and a bottle of cheap but tasty Italian wine for ?12. In both you could walk away having spend ?70 for 4 people and have really enjoyed a lovely dinner. Having spent ?210 for a meal for 4 in Locale (with only one bottle of wine) and having been pretty dissatisfied (cold food, embarrassingly badly made tiramisu etc), I think that they don't deserve repeat custom. Si Mangia was unfortunate for us perhaps as we went the night they had a dreadful singer and were badly understaffed, leading to a pretty poor experience. So the answer is (in my humble opinion) - if your friend wants to open a restaurant in Lordship Lane area serving excellent pizza, pasta and daily specials, and the food is authentic and good, and the pricing is under ?10 for a plate of pasta then they would be very popular and very welcome.

Let's hope it isn't a 3 in one kebab, pizza and chip joint AND that they open reasonable hours (i.e. in the evening and on Saturday) AND that the pizza is as good as Franco Manco's AND that the waitresses are all supermodels waiting to be discovered AND that pizza and a beer gives you change from a fiver.... .... and then they are guaranteed to do well. And then Gimme, Jeremy, Alethea and DC and everyone else will be all be happy. If not, see you down the Gowlett!

Reasonable hours is definitely a factor. If I can't go there when it's open, I don't care what the pizza tastes like. That becomes like discussing how good the new Ferrari Testa-tostarona is... Wood fired pizza in Melbourne Grove would be superb, particularly if it is open when I need pizza.

Am I the only person who doesn't have the foggiest idea where Bellingham is...? Is there something there that I'd like?

Not direct from ED I know but if you cycle to Herne Hill, it's 45 minutes to Dorking and there is absolutely fabulous cycling around there (with the benefit of quiet back road routes signposted throughout the 140 odd miles of the Surrey Cycleway)

Just had a transit van drive into the back of me while cycling to work :-( Luckily he wasn't going too fast and only wrecked my back wheel. However, and this is the interesting part, he only hit me because I decided not to go flying through Brockley Cross roundabout but instead stopped at roundabout to let a car turning from the right pass. The driver behind thought I was going to go flying out and didn't look in front of him. Just shows you... caution ISN'T always the best policy when cycling.

MPC needs to decide what it actually is... Is it a cafe, a greasy spoon or a restaurant. At the moment it appears to be a cafe but has greasy spoon attributes (like the tacky laminated menus). The tables are cheap looking and the decor is non-descript. On the positive side, I like the 'kitchen in the middle of the room' aspect of MPC. If there was room in the space available, banquette / booth style seating would be fab. Not that this counts for market research but from what I've seen, most of the people who go in seem to be in groups of ones, twos and threes therefore maximising number of two seaters would be important. At the moment the part opposite the counter seems to be tables for four occupied mainly by two people with large newspapers... Making the garden at the back would be a good idea. It feels like a back yard with pub beer garden furniture in it at the moment. A few plants might not go amiss.

It has to be Firezza - pizza by the 1/4 metre. No other pizza delivery compares. Thank goodness they sorted out their operational issues - they used to take an hour and a half but seem to always deliver within 45 mins now!

I broke my elbow on the way to work 2 months ago when a transit van suddenly stopped in front of me in the road for no reason. I overtook him and he accelerated and sharply turned right. Didn't even see me coming off the bike as I braked hard to avoid going into the side of him. His mates on the building site he was turning into had to tell him what he'd done. Add to that the lorry drivers who don't bother to look or use their mobile phones while driving through roundabouts and it's a dicey business cycling to work. Given the number of cyclists and the number of accidents, perhaps every lorry and van driver should be made to do an extra piece of cyclist awareness training. Small inconvenience to them but perhaps a massive favour to the 3 million cyclists in Britain. It's just not good enough to say that cyclists should watch out for large vehicles. I'm sure all cyclists do watch out for large vehicles but sometimes we can't do anything about it when they thunder past or turn in our paths without looking.

It's not rocket science. The patient involvement group is run by the practice itself. Or am I the only one who is thinking that this is totally obvious.... Do you really think patients would set up an involvement group for a medical practice? This isn't a village where there's only one medical practice. If you don't like it complain. If your complaints fall on deaf ears, leave for another practice. If you are desperate to stay but change things, go along to the patient involvement group run by the practice.

Ha! The subject may have been 'South East London' but the request stated: "I'm wanting to go walking somewhere in the SE " Everyone is responding to the request in the text not the mail title!

We did a fantastic walk on Sunday from Balcombe to East Grinstead (both in Sussex). Train from East Dulwich including connections was about 1 hour and cost ?9 return. Not SE London admittedly but not a million miles from it and real countryside. The walk was through villages, woods, fields, past a steam railway and round a reservoir with lunch at the Cat Inn in West Hoathly in the middle. Total 10 miles. The only catch is that it's impossible to do without directions and we used TimeOut Book of Walks near London for all directions. If you get the book, there's a cornucopia of walks around the 6 to 10 mile range near SE London.

Great categories. Me and the missus have had a shot at picking ours. One thing that did come out of that was that we had differing views on what was the intended answer for Best Customer Service Experience - was it to be a particular shop / bar / person or was it a specific experience at a specific time when someone in one of these places did something superlative in the field of customer service (e.g. the missus remembers someone on a stall in NCR nattering to her mother for 15 mins once)? If too many people interpreted it as the latter, we thought that it would be difficult to pick a winner. Do we need clarification on that one?

In some defence of the price: They were reasonably large chickens and very tasty indeed (particularly when stuffed with a mushroom and breadcrumb duxelle in pocket between the skin and breast)! Mmmm. Would like to try Sparkes now after recommendations.