Penguin68

Yesterday was Voting Registration Day - a good day to receive from Southwark notification that one elector in my household had had her postal vote removed (not at her request) and had been set back to 'Polling Station' - since she will not be in London on the day of the General Election (or for weeks around that - hence the need for a postal vote) that means that her vote has actually been taken away from her, on Voting Registration Day. Of course, I cannot get this corrected - she only can do this ('Data Protection') - apparently pointing out that there is an error (and a simple check of the paper trail showing no request to change voting method status isn't sufficient) - and not being about in London this will prove complex and difficult, although it may be possible (not confirmed) that it can be done by e-mail (oh yes, the system, and I use that word advisedly, to allow changes on the internet doesn't allow for that change to be made). So, another victory for the apparatchiks over the concept of democracy. You now have to go to extra lengths to get corrected a mistake made by them which will effectively disenfranchise you. Oh, and the final absurdity - she had just completed and sent in a form to record her signature so that her postal vote could be validated! You couldn't make it up!

I am not sure the issues you are talking about are necessarily to do with the BT broadband service per se - I also am having drop-out problems with my main PC (ethernet) - whilst other wireless devices (phones, laptop, another PC, tablet) remain firmly connected. This suggests that my problem is either terminal equipment hardware or software related (probably a software clash somewhere). By the way, if you have a dual band router (the modern BT supplied ones are) it is likely that your printer is only single band, so that may be dropping out as the router cycles to a band the printer can't read. Someone from HP explained it all to me once.

smokers are actually doing us all a favour by creating employment for doctors and nurses who'd otherwise be scrounging benefits on the dole? Smokers are actually doing us a favour by dropping dead early and quickly (rather than requiring expensive late life care) - also by not taking up too much pension (if any), so leaving more for the rest of us. Us old non smokers are in fact offering greater employment opportunities to medical and care personnel by lingering on for ever and needing so much support - quick heart attacks and strokes contributed by the smokers are much less demanding on NHS (and DHSS pension) resources.

It already has less than that if the NHS is in fact only releasing 17,000m square I believe that a second storey, as it were, would double the space, a third treble it. I believe that the 19,500 sq metres would be achieved by a multi-storey building on the 17,000m square site, leaving space for outside activities (that, clearly, on only one level). But please, James, correct me if I'm wrong. But hence earlier suggestions to cram in two schools by putting them in tower blocks.

Having raised (I think) the hare of the toxicity of yews (sorry, another string to the destroyer's bow) I would urge at least attempts to save them - they reflect many years of careful work, have contributed significantly to the urban landscape and are (toxicity apart) damn fine things. Even if transplant does set them back somewhat they will, with luck and a following wind, survive to flourish in another location. They cannot anyway just be 'cut down' if the area is to be replanted - the root balls would also have to be removed, so why not with the living trees? It would be unfortunate if attempts to present an 'improved' garden environment for children should start with an act of mindless vandalism. As a legacy of an 'environmentalist' approach it would reek.

According to sources the whole tree is poisonous From http://aspcapro.org/sites/pro/files/zk_vetm0905_646_650.pdf While various potentially toxic chemicals are present in Taxus species, all parts of the plants except the aril (i.e. the fleshy covering of the seeds) contain cardiotoxic taxine alkaloids, the main compounds of toxicologic concern. The two important cardiotoxic alkaloids present are taxine A and taxine B. 1,2 The cinnamate metabolites of both taxines are also cardiotoxic. Paclitaxel, which is of pharmacologic interest because of its antimitotic and anticancer effects, is also present in Taxus species and is potentially arrhythmogenic in some people; however, it is not the major toxic principle in this plant. Taxines remain in the plant throughout the year, with the maximal plant taxine concentrations appearing during the winter.2 Dried yew plant material retains its toxicity for several months and remains a hazard to domestic animals. The amount of plant material required to obtain a lethal dose is quite small: The LDmin in dogs is about 2.3 g of leaves/kg, or about 11.5 mg/kg of taxine alkaloids.2 So a dog could consume a potentially lethal dose while playing with Taxus species branches or sticks. Since cases have been recorded in which horses have collapsed within 15 minutes of consuming Taxus species, absorption of ingested taxine alkaloids in monogastric animals is rapid.1 And from Wikipedia:- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxus_baccata Toxicity[edit] Most parts of the tree are toxic, except the bright red aril surrounding the seed. This appears like a berry with the end split open to reveal the seed - and is safe to consume.[citation needed] The foliage itself remains toxic even when wilted, and toxicity increases in potency when dried.[16] Ingestion and subsequent excretion by birds whose beaks and digestive systems do not break down the seed's coating are the primary means of yew dispersal.[17] The major toxin within the yew is the alkaloid taxine.[18] Horses have a relatively low tolerance to taxine, with a lethal dose of 200?400 mg/kg body weight; cattle, pigs, and other livestock are only slightly less vulnerable.[19] Several studies[20] have found taxine LD50 values under 20 mg/kg in mice and rats. Symptoms of yew poisoning include an accelerated heart rate, muscle tremors, convulsions, collapse, difficulty breathing, circulation impairment and eventually heart failure. However, there may be no symptoms, and if poisoning remains undetected death may occur within hours.[21] Fatal poisoning in humans is very rare, usually occurring after consuming yew foliage. The leaves are more toxic than the seed.[18]

I was also thinking about the yew as a source of bows - the long-bow is a very important factor in the English and Welsh participation in e.g. The Hundred Years War - Crecy, Poitiers, Agincourt etc. - the cultivation of yew (in graveyards etc.) an important contribution to the war materiel.

I entirely feel for Lucy and love the trees BUT - if the space is to be used by the children more proactively AND if the trees are yew (which is incredibly poisonous) then they do post a real hazard - I can recall a (perfectly nice) laburnum having to be removed from a play area in a school because one pupil persuaded another to snack on (in fact the flowers rather than the seed pods, which in laburnum are the danger points) it. If there is any chance they can be replanted and saved that would be good. Yews can be very long-lived and are, I believe, pretty robust, so maybe even trees as old as this could be saved. However the space being grabbed does seem very small - it will hardly provide much utility to the children - whereas the tended yew trees (if not part of the children's immediate play area) would add greater aesthetic and even possibly educational value. The role of the yew in English history is important, the sculpting of trees in English garden history (topiary) equally so.

I would remind posters that Mr Barber is one councillor amongst many, and is not in the ruling party in Southwark. His answers may be personally interesting but will hardly be definitive. His interest in such council minutiae one would expect to evaporate should he be successful in a wider constituency. Whatever he says won't be game changing in a context outside the ward he represents - some of the issues raised (i.e. speed limits) are much wider than the ED ward anyway. He is aware that, when questioned, his constituents have voted against CPZs. I am sure that if he is aware of manipulation to change the game he will wish to resist it, going, as it does, against the wishes of a significant majority of electors polled at the time (only 18 months - 2 years or so ago, so hardly ancient history!).

I suspect, first mate, that you are seeing conspiracy where there is only cock-up - the apparatchiks responsible for the cyclists at all costs policies which drove the no right turn fiasco - the yellow lines around dropped kerbs, the 20mpg limit, probably the re-design of North Cross Road may be all in a highways department, but probably different bits of it. Certainly there is a general anti-car bias amongst many of the political parties, certainly many would like to be able to squeeze revenue where they can, but I suspect that the way the council is actually run is not nearly as joined-up as you suggest here. At best we have a common disregard of the needs or wishes of the electorate (so no changes there)- but we are probably at the 'banality of evil' end of the spectrum rather than a thought-through conspiracy to achieve a particular end.

It is worthwhile pointing out that neither The Mail, nor the police they reported, suggest that the Canon made any moves from watching films to any personal real life inappropriate contact with children locally - so it seems likely (unless clear evidence comes to the contrary) that children in the local school and choir had not been put at risk. Nor, if this is so, would any suspicion necessarily have been raised by those who knew and worked with him - the whistle seems to have been blown on his on-line activities and that from abroad. Those who view child abuse create the market for its continued filming, etc. so his guilt is not lessened by this, but those who have had children who were in social contact with him should not necessarily be too alarmed by his past (and pastoral) roles.

Railway cottages may well be a great retention for the local visual environment, but the ones I have been in, (not these ones, I should hasten to add) were often poky and cramped inside, not well provided for cooking (I can't say the k word) or bathrooms - they have often needed very extensive uplift to meet modern standards expectations. They were 'model homes' in their day, and provided railway workers with better accommodation that they might have had elsewhere, but 'their day' has long passed.

I think the most cogent argument is simply that impacts at around 20mph (vehicle to stationary body) cause less damage (to people and other vehicles) than impacts at 30mpg - so deaths move to serious injury, serious injury to less so. As vehicles get larger and heavier (think how small saloon cars were in the 1950s compared with now) the inertia of the impacts are anyway increasing, so reducing speed restores some balance. Whoever is to blame in an accident, slower speeds allow greater reaction and response times - substantially so when vehicles are closing at a combined 40mph rather than 60mph (modern crumple zones mean that vehicle on vehicle impacts are less likely to lead to death and serious injury to those in the vehicles). The actual reduction in journey time at a maximum 20mph rather than 30mph for most journeys through Southwark is, frankly, immaterial. The problem lies in the poor and confusing signage which means that individuals frequently do not know what the relevant limit is where they are - which is exacerbated by boy racers and white-van men who hoot first and think (if at all) a great deal later.

In France, in those areas where there are parking restrictions, these are often lifted for the hours 12:00-2:00 (lunch time) - how typical that Brits want to impose parking restrictions at lunch. Says it all, really. And, Louisa, I suspect you may wish to comment on the suggestion that Clapham parking restrictions should blow in here? (Other option is pay and display for non-resident pass holders (they do this in Clapham) for the time you want to park.) [My emphasis].

Surely, 2 hours from 12-2pm like herne hill would help all so commuters don't park their cars all day hogging the space! It's not going to make that much difference to shops for 2 hours!!!! I am afraid there is little evidence that local parking problems are caused by commuters (other than those commuting to actually work in and around Lordship Lane, like teachers in local schools - and you might find, with two children of your own, that those come in use eventually). The roads immediately around ED station (which commuters parking around LL would use) are normally less parked-up in the day than at evenings and weekends - suggesting it is residents that are parking there, not commuters. Stopping people who work locally parking locally will not have a long-term benefit to the area. Thinking that a CPZ will 'give' you a space outside your house is just wishful thinking in our situation. Unless the roads around your house are empty after 6:00? (which is not my experience locally). And if it is the people who work in the shops that also park around you - then, yes, it will make a difference to them.

I find this thread genuinely useful when on-topic - please don't give hostages to fortune for a Lounge-wards lurch.

Good security would suggest a close protection team would familiarise themselves with a route fairly inconspiciously - so as not to alert anyone to the route - and practice convoying somewhere else, similar to but not the real route - save where the route (i.e. The Mall) is always going to be very obvious and predicatable.

As others have noted (particularly with the car being empty), these seem much more likely to be either practice or a training runs - very possibly to ensure the outriders remain in contact with (and the right distances from) the target car. Running a tight convoy of vehicles, at reasonable speed, through suburban traffic and streets is a non-trivial skill, which can only be learned and practiced in 'real' situations. If this is a rehearsal (as opposed to more general training) the real event may not even be our roads - just roads much like them.

If there were substantial amounts of soil in the bin it could have been excluded in case it was garden soil rather than vegetable waste - soil has stones which could damage machinery designed to shred compost.

Just to wuote the best bit from Mr Coren Well, they are ladies and gents of a certain age, who for most of their lives lived in a London of closed boozers, awful food, stinky communal pissoirs, graffitied public buildings, incipient sexism and racism, and danger on every corner. And they are just so jealous about the great things their children?s generation are doing to this city that they want to nip progress in the bud by objecting to damn near everything. They want to turn the clocks back to a time that they somehow perceive as having been more ?real?, because it was their own miserable reality growing up, and they want it to be ours.

A restaurant so great that people (apart, apparently, from Louisa) stopped going to it. Whatever its absolutle merits, failing to meet the needs of its addressable customer base meant it lost its business. Tough. I have no brief for 'posh tat' - and if the (current crop of) locals don't either, it, too, will fail. But to wish to preserve some mythic past that you alone feel comfortable with, to the exclusion of the needs of those around you, is, well, sad. And stop being rude to people who are prepared to move round SE London. With your hatred of 'blow-ins' you make UKIP's case for them.

This area is a problem and a (potential) danger during (mainly) school rush hours - perhaps 10 hours a week for about 39 weeks a year - a time in fact when, because it is a rush hour, traffic is already slow and when there is a strong incentive (becuase of the weight of traffic) to drive, cycle and walk carefully, which is probably why the recorded incidents here are so low, and why so far there have been no serious incidents at all. A quite draconian measure (which will severely disprupt normal road usage locally for - mainly- local residents) is being 'required' by the traffic mavens to address a 'problem' which has not been the focus of any previoius local disquiet (at least measured by these pages) against many other junctions identified as being genuinely dangerous, and with an actual history of serious incidents as opposed to hand-wringing that there might be one at some time. Much of the actually (very temporary) traffic problem locally is caused by commercial coaches transporting children to schools where the schools seem to take little or no interest or care about the disruption their business brings to the area. Indeed they are happy to pass on even more disruption to the benefit of their businesses, if they can get the traffic mavens to play (they can!). Apparatchiks with a focus on London wide political manipulation of traffic flows are happy to use money they can access (and far more money than an apparently effective quick fix would require) to steam-roller through a locally unpopular measure; reassured that their obfuscation and misleading statements will never come home to roost - they know as well as we do that local resistance will never translate (in this case) into sufficient votes to make any political difference - it is very rare that this ever happens, and although a 'no hospital closure' MP can get elected, a 'no right tun into Townley Road' platform is not one which will lead to electoral success.

ED Picturehouse have just posted the following on FB Wonderful people of East Dulwich! You may have noticed that progress on the building work has been slower than expected. But we have all been working as hard as we can, and we are now pleased to announce that we will be opening our doors on ? drumroll please ? Friday 20 March. We promise it will be worth the wait! More news soon...

Perhaps the house frontages are wider resulting in a lower ratio of resident owned cars to space available There is a lot of off street parking around these streets in Herne Hill - this both reduces the pressure and makes life much more tolerable for residents - the problem was cars parking all day to use Herne Hill Station (which I did!) - this station serves both Victoria and Blackfriars/ Thames Link and was a real attractor. ED station is much less so - I can almost always find a space around e.g. Ondine during the day if I need to, it is only in the evenings/ at weekends that parking in this area becomes difficult, suggesting it is residents which are putting on the pressure, not visitors. This suggests that CPZs would not work here - it is only when parking is much less in the evenings than it is in the days (with no CPZ) that CPZs assist local residents by keeping 'their' roads clear of interlopers. Otherwise it's all about revenue generation and anti-car controls. I find that most of the areas around LL are pretty consistently parked day and night - the 'slack' caused by visitors leaving the area is not very noticeable. Suggests high local car ownership and not much chance of a CPZ having a positive impact for residents. [As I have said before, I have off street parking for 3/4 cars and am not really a personal player in this debate].

What is not clear, I now realise, from the picture, is what is the parking opportunity on either side of this yellow? If is is placed to obviate parking on either side (because the spaces left are too small) it's quite an economic use of the paint.