Penguin68

Whilst we still worship the dead and fetishize the paraphernalia of body disposal then cemeteries will continue to be needed as body dumps rather than nature reserves. With a shortage of suitable 'free' land reasonably close to the living (and whilst these still think they need to visit the dead) then the plans for the cemeteries (pile them in, stack them high) are a necessary evil. Persuade people to dispose of the dead with the garden and kitchen waste, and not require a particular place to remember them in, and you can have your nature reserve. But until then...

Surely they can?t hand out a quarter of a million pounds without some kind of plan to monitor whether the money was well spent? Sadly this is what many public (and private) bodies do all the time - most people think that the effort is best placed in planning, not post-implementation monitoring - but it is only monitoring which will validate whether the plans were right in the first instance. I see this everywhere - advertising campaigns are pre-tested, but very rarely are they then monitored closely, for instance, and then only reviewed long after a campaign is completed, when there is no chance of adjustment or improvement. For public spend this is even worse. ?250k is probably 'below the radar' for TFL spend, which must be in the millions if not billions (think what cross-rail is costing, or the work to take the tube to Battersea)

Assuming your internet service is delivered over the 'phone line' (i.e. not cable) - then it is most likely that this is an external line problem, very possibly a problem in a roadside cabinet caused by other works going on it it. Report the problem to your carrier, who can get the line checked. However it is also possible that your phone itself is faulty - check with another phone if you have one. Or try calling your own number from a mobile - if you get number unobtainable, or engaged, then there is probably a network problem. If you get ring tone on the mobile, but your phone doesn't ring, then it may still be a faulty phone. There is quite unlikely to be a general fault where numbers of people have lost phone service but still have internet connexions, or at least one which is left uncleared for so long.

Richard Tudor wrote 'People who read and voted for Clegg on fees got shafted and call me Dave on inheritance tax got shafted.' Without any brief for either party quoted - the nature of a coalition government is that the full manifestos of the parties concerned will not be acted on - otherwise they would be the same party. Coalition requires compromise, hence manifesto pledges cannot all be delivered for both parties; if they were to insist on this they would never have any coalition in the first place. Simples.

Frankly, forumites are prepared to report a sparrow sneezing locally, so I would be very surprised if any accidents of any seriousness have occurred at this junction which have not been picked-up on - even if not in reported figures. As a fairly regular reader I cannot remember any such reports (happy to be corrected on this) - which makes me feel that national statistics on under-reporting are not necessarily valid in this instance.

I would tend to add (3) when a large coach or articulated lorry swings in and out of the much restricted road space to turn, and crushes thereby a cyclist, which apparatchik or counselor will stand up and admit that it was their mad scheme which has led to death or serious injury at a junction noticeably without either before the changes were made, and will resign? Oh, silly me, none of them will.

Not as easy to read as a note on the car windscreen - surely?! Actually, if you don't use your car every day (perhaps mainly at weekends) and you haven't parked it that close to where you live (not uncommon in ED) and don't walk past it as part of your commute you might actually miss a windscreen note - if you, or friends who know your car, read the forum, then maybe it is an effective communications medium. And, as has been noted, any port in a storm when an alarm is going off constantly (which, with an over sensitive motion sensor, these windy conditions could easily trigger).

If you enjoy waiting 4 weeks for a routine appointment, being left on hold for 15 minutes each time you call, y our results being lost and the odd snappy, rude receptionist then I highly recommend Forest Hill Road Group Practice. Not my experience having been a patient there for over a quarter of a century - I have had long waits for an appointment with a (named) doctor over the summer, when the said doctor was on leave, but otherwise seen within 48 hours (or telephone consultation) for anything urgent, normally same day. 'Routine' appointments are the ones which you can (reasonably) wait some time for - it is urgent ('I am actually ill, now') appointments where timeliness is key. Receptionists not rude in my experience, no results lost (for me or the other 3 members of my family). Have had some prescription mix-ups in 25 years, quickly remedied - (mainly one item left off, never the wrong drugs or the wrong strengths prescribed).

I recall some whining by the DMC Healthcare poster that if it wasn't for no-shows everything would be ros(ier) - maybe if it was possible to get through to the practice to cancel appointments no longer necessary (so much time has lapsed patient is better, dead or has found someone to treat them) then there would be fewer missed appointments - no one in their right minds is going to hang on as long (or dial so frequently) or actually go round to the practice just to cancel.

I have been a qualified driver for 48 years - one thing my years of driving have taught me is that accidents tend to happen when road users are (a) confused and (b) frustrated. The proposal as recommended seems to me to have a very good chance of (a) confusing and (b) frustrating road users (all, motorists, cyclists, pedestrians) - particularly when very large vehicles (coaches, lorries) have to swing out into roads which have been artificially narrowed. Where traffic is grid-locked (it will be) pedestrians may choose to hasten across the road amongst what they anticipate will be stationary traffic, until a two- wheeled vehicle dodging between vehicles knocks into them. In general I believe simple is always better - this is one of the least 'simple' traffic arrangements I have ever seen in what is or could be a simple, suburban street junction. The only possible upside is that most collisions will necessarily be low speed and thus relatively low impact.

I think we are talking about ADSL and fibre services here. ADSL can be significantly impacted by the distance from the exchange (the signal attenuates over distance). Speeds will also attenuate where the access is wireless, not wired - so wireless ADSL will be less fast than direct (ethernet) connection to your router, ADSL far slower than fibre (for BT - BT Infinity). The EDT may well be connected by Infinity - and will certainly be a business service. If memory serves 3.28 mpbs over ADSL wasn't that bad, with old(ish) equipment. If you (DF) are paying for BT Infinity however, then you need to contact BT, as something is clearly wrong.

I have BT Broadband (Infinity) - I really haven't had the problems you are talking about, on PCs, TV, mobiles, tablets. I did have a drop-out problem, which I finally identified as a browser clash - using a different browser sorted it (the browser was not compatible with a networking component in my PC). Problems can exist in (your own) hardware and software and can also happen where there is wireless channel contention with neighbours. It is also possible that you have a problem with your external plant (the wires coming into your house from a BT flexibility point - this can normally be checked for, although if the fault is intermittent it can be a beast to uncover). The underlying broadband service can also fall-over, but when it does BT is generally quick about curing it - a couple of years back they had a problem with a firmware upgrade on the exchange side which caused wide spread problems for a few hours until diagnosed and cleared, but normally outages are much more quickly sorted (other than actual physical destruction or theft of cables which can take days to sort out because of the complexity of jointing twisted pair to the (right) twisted pair). As all the physical network (but not exchange based equipment) for residential services other than Virgin media is actually BT supplied you are anyway significantly reliant on BT - and its underlying broadband service (I can state from personal experience) is generally robust and non-problematic. The problem is that 'getting broadband' requires a large number of equipment and software elements, from multiple suppliers, and identifying where there is a problem can be complex. Many years ago an I-Tunes software upgrade included lines of code which disabled certain routers, for instance, - it can really be that weird.

If you own a practice, the more people on your books, and the fewer GPs you hire, the more profit you will make. Other staff costs include receptionists, practice nurses, other clerical and admin staff, as well as expenditure on IT systems, telephony etc. All possible to cheese-pair on. Some medical staff (such as midwives and Community Nurses) may be based in GP practices, but are paid for by NHS trusts or successor. Generally salaried doctors earn far less than the headline earnings you read about for GPs (around ?100k+) which are for partners. Additional payments are made for achieving particular targets, although I am not sure how these are audited.

If you haven't got a shredder, and plan to buy one, it is a good choice to buy a 'cross-cut' shredder, which cuts the paper into pieces about an inch long and 3/10s inch wide rather than one (an older style) which just cuts into long strips, which are easier to reassemble. You can now buy relatively economic shredders which cut 8 or so pages together. Which is not to say this is what the scavengers written about are actually after.

The stark reality is that if you need to see a GP urgently ... But only at certain ED surgeries - many do offer real 'same day' appointments - mine does for instance, for 'urgent distress' (i.e. actually being ill). This will either be immediately face-to-face or a telephone consultation - often all that is needed. I only have to wait any length of time if I want to see a named doctor - and then this will be about something routine - i.e. care review of a long term condition, when I am looking for continuity of care. That is why the DMC saga is so annoying, even in ED it doesn't have to be like that - it's not just 'the way it is' in SE London.

Absolutely yes - the 'research' published by Andrew Wakefield has been shown to be rubbish, and withdrawn by its publisher, and Wakefield has been struck-off. There is NO evidence that the MMR jab causes any problems, and, in so far as any vaccination could be an issue, having separate jabs rather than the combined MMR would be more, not less likely to cause these problems. Protecting your child from measles and mumps will save them from the possibility of nasty complications (and both diseases are unpleasant to have, even if no complications arise), and rubella, while itself quite a mild infection, can lead to dreadful disability if caught by a pregnant woman. Because of the stupidity of parents earlier on you cannot rely on herd immunity, in London, protecting your children if unvaccinated. You are lucky to have a doctor who is bothering to remind you of this. Follow his advice.

Plusnet is wholly owned by BT - but operated at arms length. Like any ISP/ broadband provider (save those providing satellite broadband, which is very expensive, or mobile broadband - slower and also often more expensive than e.g. fibre services) it has to have a physical link into the house - it uses telephone lines (as do most providers other than the former NTL Cable company, now re-branded as Virgin, who uses cable access). Hence you have to be getting telephony from someone for them to be able to connect to you. Almost all domestic physical connexions (other than cable TV) are eventually provided by BT Openreach, the provider of wholesale local network to BT Retail as well as to most other non cable ISPs. Just out of interest, emergency services (999) are only guaranteed delivery over a hardwired phone using a landline, because landlines are powered from exchanges which have back-up battery systems in case of power failure. Even if you lose power in your home, a hardwired phone will still work - wireless handsets rely on the base station to be powered, the exchange power won't be sufficient to run those. Mobiles will of course continue to work, if you have power, and signal!

BT started in the telephone business - its delivery mechanism to the house is via telephone lines - Virgin started as a cable business, its delivery is via coaxial (was anyway) - the engineering in the BT Network is enhanced telephony, that of Virgin enhanced cable. Hence BT charges for the (telephone) landlines it uses to deliver services - broadband with telephony; Virgin offers broadband with cable. It's the way their network topologies were designed and work. For Virgin it's actually more difficult to provide telephone services over their sort of network - hence they are happy not to have to. For BT it's the telephone network which forms the backbone of their delivery system, - although now there is Fibre to the Cabinet (FTTC) they offer hybrid systems - but the twisted pair going into the house is essentially part of the telephone network, which additionally (with the right electronics) carries broadband.

Sorry - I think I had read that piece and sort of forgotten its origins.

Good piece - you might want to think that with the Grove abandoned, the Dog shut and being rebuilt as a reduced pub with rooms and the Half Moon in doubt, the Dulwich Estate has managed to blight every decent sized pub (EDT an exception, and not that large) in the area. And the Estate doesn't own the EDT site. Are they secretly teetotal Quakers?

20 years and more ago the early inoculations were covered off (as far as reminders) by the Health Visitors (do those still exist?) with the pre-school reminders coming from the surgery, if memory serves. The schools then handled school-time inoculations - such as the TB one. We had to fill in a form each year for the school saying which inoculations had been done, which also acted as a reminder. Since then I think more inoculations have been introduced (my eldest, certainly, was pre-MMR) and surgeries have been incentivised by payments (I believe) if they achieve the right percentage of inoculation take-up - so presumably in their best interests to remind. I think things like tetanus boosters were alway going to be down to parents to remember.

This water-logging was on established graves, not new ones. One's 30 years and more old. I think the new asphalt is important as regards draining and run-off.

I have recently been walking around Camberwell Old Cemetery, and have noticed considerable water-logging of graves - and that at the top of the hill. I suspect that the recent tarmacing of the pathways will have exacerbated the problems of water run-off - many of the graves (including depressions of burials now unmarked) were ponds. The problem of water-logging will be exacerbated down the hill particularly where trees (which are fine sinks for water) are removed - thus making the proposed new (or revived) areas for burial even more prone to flooding and water-logging, as I would imagine there will be a lot more tarmac put down for pathways to support vehicles (hearses etc.) in the new burials. Do you know whether there have been proper hydrological surveys done of the site, and forecasts of impact once the existing scrub woodland is removed? I suspect this could be an additional argument that those wishing to preserve the woods may wish to put forward.

So, if your child is over 3 years and 4 months and hasn't had their pre-school immunisation or are overdue any others and you want them to have it, make sure you make an appointment. This is a really worrying development to the DMC saga - childhood immunisation is vital (and I think is one of the things GP practices are specifically paid to do, but I am happy to be corrected here). If these are not happening there may be a real problem of local epidemics (where 'herd immunity' is compromised). Normally injections would be handled by the practice nurse, rather than GPs, but it is easy for parents to forget (or simply not know) the relevant timings.

It is well within permitted development so won't need planning approval. If you want it certified as a permitted development (you will if you ever want to sell) then you still have to submit plans etc. to the council - and permitted development or not it must still be built to building regs. Even if it doesn't need planning permission per se it still needs to be viewed and OK'd by the planning department. Which means you will need proper professional plans if you want it to go through smoothly.