Penguin68

A famous story (possibly not true) of Brown goes as follows:- Attending a glittering official reception at the Palace of the Dawn on an official visit to Brazil, with all the military officers in full-dress uniform and the ambassadors in court dress, he is said to have made a bee-line for a gorgeously crimson-clad figure. A colleague later recalled: ?George said: ?Excuse me, but may I have the pleasure of this dance?? There was a terrible silence for a moment before the guest, who knew who he was, replied: ?There are three reasons, Mr Brown, why I will not dance with you. '?The first, I fear, is that you?ve had too much to drink. The second is that this is not, as you suppose, a waltz that the orchestra is playing but the Peruvian national anthem, for which you should be standing to attention. And the third reason why we may not dance, Mr Brown, is that I am the Cardinal Archbishop of Lima.??

It is not often realised that on horseback the police get a much better view over fences and into gardens, allowing them to spot lurkers and hiders more easily. This is a better perspective than they can get on foot patrol (not that we see that nowadays very much) and a much better perspective than from inside a car. When the stables were in the Whately Road station they used to patrol quite regularly.

70k surely.

James The metrics you quote do suggest that there is a problem, the remedy however is one dimensional and heavy handed and will (as suggested by others) place unnecessary pressure on a National Health system already creaking at the edges, and more, locally. For 'short' absences it is a good idea to check that the parent/ guardian was aware of them (not by a note in the school bag) - this addresses truantism - but the implicit 'we don't trust you if you say your child is ill' is, frankly, rude and suggests a significant break-down of trust between the school and parents. I would be looking at patterns per child, not at overall metrics here (except as an initial trigger that there is/ may be a problem). Absenting from school can be symptomatic of e.g. bullying, poor teaching and class control, even dirty buildings. After all, if one school is exceptional amongst others within the same broad cachment area, that may suggest a problem with the school, not its public.

I have lived in ED for the last 25 years, (under the old Concorde flight path) - throughout that time I have never been bothered by the noise of planes - on occasion I have noticed it - and I recall a South American friend being amazed in the summer that he never saw fewer than 2 planes in the sky throughout an afternoon in the garden. Being bothered (I have perfectly good hearing, by the way) is to some extent a state of mind - the more you are annoyed by the sound, the more intrusive it becomes. If I listen out I can hear planes (I can now) - but I don't listen out for them or notice them, even though I am frequently awake in the early mornings,when they appear to annoy others. I hear sirens, I am annoyed when helicopters hover overhead, I am driven as nuts by foxes screaming as anyone, but I can blank planes. It may be that they are so prevalent that they have become part of an ignored sound scape (I also can blank traffic - having lived next to main roads). For your own peace of mind, changing your response to planes, rather than trying to argue about flight paths, might be a more (cost) effective route. Maybe CBT (or meditation) could help.

If the landlord is not available (this is a period when people are away) there is not a lot anyone can do about it; the tenant cannot instruct constructional works and if the letting agents are not also being paid to manage the tenancy their hands are tied as well. If the building is reported and declared unsafe then the tenants are homeless. Bit of a quandary.

The DoE flood map suggests that we are nowhere near any riverine flood risk Environment Agency - What's in your backyard? http://maps.environment-agency.gov.uk/wiyby/wiybyController?x=534633.0&y=173784.0&topic=floodmap&ep=map&scale=9&location=SE22%200QU&lang=_e&layerGroups=default&distance=&textonly=off#x=531758&y=173130&lg=1,&scale=8 This must all be about burst water mains and blocked rain-water drains. The first cannot be readily predicted, the second can be avoided with proper maintenance.

Zero-hour contracts can be very good for those at the higher end of the skill spectrum, they allow flexible working and portfolio of jobs. Often they are used to allow what are, in effect, call-off contracts for individuals, without the need to go through tendering processes and recruitment every time. They are bad for low-paid workers where the flexibility is all the employers, where the employer requires exclusivity and where e.g. only on-site but not travel between jobs time is paid for.

totally wrong that people should wait I am hoping this comment was ironic - There are in fact 3 bank holidays over the Christmas period - many households are now getting their collections on the same days as normal, most have only a 1 or 2 day slippage at most. And everything 'corrects' by the New Year. In previous years we have had up to 3 weeks of disrupted collection days. The bin men have rights too, including, I would suggest, the right to Christmas day off. They are hardly an emergency (if always a valuable and indeed vital) service. If you are over-flowing there are many deposit points around the borough, especially for recyclables. At least a hold-up in Blue Bin collection (mine is also full, and my collections are unchanged) is neither noxious nor a health hazard.

as it's very clearly not East Dulwich. It may be very clearly not East Dulwich Ward - but this is the East Dulwich Forum (East Dulwich being a somewhat nebulous area, including but not necessarily constrained to SE22) not the East Dulwich electoral ward forum. The issue raised perhaps could have been raised in another thread - but it is an ED issue. However James has been helpful in pointing to ward councillors who may be more relevant than him in this case.

If you are actually throwing out -to trash - (as opposed to recyling for someone else's use) old computers take out the hard drive and actually smash it to bits (with a hammer) after running any wipe programs - it is possible to recontruct smahed Winchester discs, but you need a government strength lab to do it and get useable data from it. Hard drives are wiped by over-writing them - but as all which is actually stored anyway are '0's and '1's there is a chance you will over-write a '0' with another '0' - that's why you are meant to over-write multiple times - I think 7 is the standard.

Once you separate off management from those actually working within a GP practice your are likely to get problems (practice managers don't, despite the name, manage the practice, but the non medical processes, if you are lucky). Most commercial concerns place a local manager (of a shop, of a factory) within the local concern itself, with that manager having (within company policy) the opportunity to hire/ fire staff working on that site and direct them as to their duties. I suspect that 'management' is not being done locally here, and thus no doctor working within the practice has any control as to what is happening within the practice. This is not a standard commercial model for a multi-site business which operates, effectively, as a number of stand-alone mini-businesses. There, each mini-business would operate semi-autonomously - applying a commercial policy but able to make decisions about people management, filling vacancies etc. (of support if not qualified medical staff, in this instance). I would be interested in seeing the business organigramme, (organisation chart), but I suspect that decision making power is held very centrally, with little actual 2 way communciation between the centre and the outposts, and with no local devolved power (except perhaps to a practice manager to employ admin staff - and where that post is unfilled, or filled badly, chaos will ensue). This is not to say that multiple practice ownership is always a bad choice for the NHS, but done badly it certainly is. Funnily enough, those dreaded 'commercial' concerns that everyone is scared of entering the primary health care element of the NHS would probably know how to manage much better.

Just to note that it used to be very common for businesses in the same trade to congregate together - hence Milk and Bread Streets and Poultry Lane in the City. It is a way in which 'perfect market' economies can run - when buyers are fully aware of price/ quality and can make informed market choices.

Just for the record, I also said it was sad when a business couldn't continue in its old location - I am, in that sense, bothered, but I also believe that there are realities, which include both economic and (in this case, apparently) inter-personal which necessarily transcend my personal preferences. I am not party-pris to this family dispute, and as I do not know the details (and don't want to) taking one side apparently against the other, whatever my own wishes for an established ED trader to continue to trade, seems otiose. My point has been, all along, that expressions of sentiment and support to the shop, whilst no doubt morally good, will have little practical application in what is a technical planning issue. Indeed planners absolutely should not be being influenced by sentiment - what if their sentiments were racist or sexist or religiously biased?

Retail economics are based around trading profits (sales revenues less cost of goods sold) per square ft (or metre) of retail space. These have to pay for staff salaries, rental, rates, overheads and cost of capital. To cover these costs, you have to sell a lot of low ticket items (like fruit and vedge) or just some high ticket items (jewellery or houses). Where rates and rentals are high, then shops which require high volumes of sales (normally related to high volumes of foot-fall) to generate profits will be less economic than shops which have a relatively high (in real terms) sales to profit ratio. The profit from selling just one house requires a greengrocer to be selling a ton of spuds (actually rather more). As fixed overheads (rates, rent) on ED retail space increase the pressures on ?ordinary? shops escalates. It is no use a local authority trying to ?zone? retail space without also being able to distort market prices for retail space locally. You cannot encourage ?worthy? shops like basic greengrocers or bakers to operate in an environment where they can?t make money (high-end shops like Franklins which charge premiums for quality or rarity are a different issue). Indeed, over time, local authorities frequently have to balance a change of use with a retail space remaining empty ? the change of use is normally better for the locality than urban decay.

So does that mean that we wouldn't necessarily be losing Pretty's? No, it means that Pretty's will not be replaced by an estate agent without change of use being agreed (unless, as I have said earlier) there is a moratorium on this part of planning. It depends what the lease terms are and when they expire. If Pretty's say they are going, as I believe from the OP that they have, then I assume that they will know. Whether they are being forced to leave, or choosing to leave because circumstances are no longer right for them I do not know - clearly a re-build which would close the shop for some time cannot be very satisfactory and I am assuming that the lease has terminated - unless there are safety reasons most leases would protect the lessee from unforced building works disrupting their tenancy. The fact that they are getting people to sign a petition would suggest that they see no other clear paths to continuing to trade there. The suggestion that this is part-and-parcel of a family dispute also suggests that (in my experience) paths of complete rationality may be obstructed by sentiment.

The planning permission (which, on the face of it, doesn't look to be for something too obtrusive and makes logical sense - separating the shop entrance from the flat entrance - and doesn't change the occupancy levels, it's still a shop and a flat) will be made on planning rules - a 'petition' which does not reflect planning issues will be irrelevant in any planning decision - sentiment is not part of the rule set. It is sad when a business cannot continue in its old location (I think of Callows) but changes do happen. I am not sure why the current owners should be swayed by public opinion, and certainly the planners shouldn't be (outside the planning rules). I am also not sure that there isn't a moritorium currently on planning being able to decide what sort of commercial premises should occupy a space (apart e.g from sex-shops) - so change of use from a greengrocer to an estate agent (if that is true and intended) may also not be 'influenceable' through the expression of public opinion. By all means sign petitions if you want to, it does express a 'solidarity' with the petitioners, but do not expect such a petition to have (to be able to have) any impact.

There are legitimate flavourings which, over used, can taste 'soapy'. This may be an issue of a heavy hand with seasoning rather than anything otherwise untoward.

james90's posting history seems both very recent and relatively partial - blame the NHS (and implictly recent reforms) not the surgery. But the article he quotes is not about a DMC style operation - indeed the DMC healthcare group looks rather more like the feared privatisation of the article, with focus on income not patients. If it was all the NHS we might expect a similar level of complaint and problem across the surgeries used by ED people - in fact there are problems, but not so significantly around staffing levels - DMC does seem exceptional in this area, and this is not a recent problem caused by a sudden loss of staff - it has been a constant nagging theme on these pages for ages. Over time the surgery I have used for the last 25 years has had problems - particularly in getting its appointment booking processes and its opening times right - but these have been intermittent and (mainly) addressed.

I believe there have been experiments where fake queues ... I think this is only in societies/ circumstances where queuing is normal - i.e. where there is rationing or there are regular shortages, or where a queue might be expected, for instance the Boxing Day sales (when sales at Christmas started on Boxing Day).

But it's the only thing that truly works. You just need to make your house super secure. In fact, you only have to make your house (a) more secure than those round you and, if you've really got valuables, set the 'cost' of breaking in at (roughly) slightly more than 10% of the value of the items you fear you will lose - that's the fencing value of goods - i.e. a burglar will get about 10% of the face value of anything stolen. As long as either other houses are less secure than yours, or yours is sufficiently secure to make breaking in unprofitable, then burglars will look elsewhere. But no domestic property can be made truly secure, against a determined thief. After all, genuinely secure places, like bank vaults and bank deposit boxes are breached from timer to time, as are jewelry shops etc. - which have much higher security than domestic premises can afford, or live with and be used still as homes.

Report this - at the very least you appear to be being stalked! - Maybe keep a diary, so you have a record of the events- and of course don't open the door. If you can, photograph the man and his companion (from an upstars window?) If he calls again, and you have reported it, call 999. This isn't 'normal' sales behaviour. It maybe that the man is disturbed in some way, which is an explanation but doesn't make it any better for you.

I cannot say that, in the case quoted, (which I have no confirmation was even a DMC case) that this was definitely true, I was simply suggesting that hospital/ specialist references cost money, that GP pactices (primary care) are the fundholders, and that money not spent on care will be retained by the practice. Hence, if (big IF) the salaried GPs at DMC were being encouraged to be parsiminious with their expenditures, then this might additionally relate to practice management issues rather than being primarily an issue of poor or incompetent diagnosis by the GP in question. So it might (again just theoretically) be a 'running of the practice' issue, as clearly is the understaffing of support people.

Whilst that is awful, surely that is nothing to do with the running of the practice. If this was a DMC GP involved in this sad case, then there may have been pressure on GPs at the practice from the owners not to refer cases to hospital specialists, as this 'uses' primary care budgets - if you are running this strictly as a business you may wish to keep down your costs as much as possible - so avoiding where you can funding hospital examinations. So, whilst this clinical behaviour may reflect inexperience, or simple error, it may be symptomatic of cost-focused practice management.

Oh, the pitfalls of TLAs