Penguin68

If you like very good quality South Asian food then Babur in Brockley is offering a well priced, for what it is, Christmas day menu with sensitively priced reductions for a more limited children's menu. They also have a compelling wine list and their specialist cocktails are phenomenal. Not traditional Christmas fare, but then that might be an additional recommendation.

I've certainly had a bike come out of that road, although I cannot recall if that was legal (a lot of the 'one-way' roads do allow bikes to go against the flow of motorised traffic locally) or simply a rogue cyclist. Either which way, to assume no oncoming traffic is never safe nowadays, even where the roads are nominally one-way.

It would also reduce the revenue opportunities.

Read what I wrote, it's concentrating on all the people around a school which means that slightly obscured and difficult to read signage goes unnoticed. Because we are focusing on people and not on road signs. And because we are very experienced at doing that when driving past or near schools, which until very recently didn't carry huge fines for driving near them.

Which is why people are staring at the roads pavements and missing signs placed high up, in small type and often slightly obscured by trees etc. Their (and indeed my) attention is on people on the roads and pavements. Would you have it otherwise?

Another shout out for Milk & More - their app allows you to alter the order, add or subtract to it and also to schedule holiday stops without having to leave messages in bottle - so more secure. You do have to set up a direct debit with them, but I haven't had any problems with that myself. I have had one or two missed or late deliveries in several years, but not really a problem - only very occasional and caused mainly by delivery-person illness. And very much feels like an old-fashioned milk delivery. They do special seasonal offers as well. More expensive than the cheapest of the super market milk prices, but for that its at your door, fresh and no bother.

I have already said that I don't like fireworks. But I do believe in freedom for others to act within the law for their own pleasure. You evidently don't. So who's the troll?

As the days shorten having evening fireworks for e.g. birthday parties becomes more realistic, the idea that fireworks is only about Guy Fawkes day or New Year's Eve is not a rule. I personally do not like fireworks, but other do, and I would see no reason to stop other's pleasure. I am sure the local Puritans will object, and there are issues about disturbing wild life with unexpected noise. But I'm in favour of simple pleasures. And many do like fireworks.

A number of recent crashes appear to have happened late at night or in the early morning. It is more likely than at other times that these may be stolen cars or ones being used for crime. These are not, really, road safety issues, at least in the sense that it's all about good driving. And need different remedies.

Precisely the intent for revenue generation, I'm guessing. Particularly as it's a popular route.

They shot part of an episode of the Bill around Camberwell Old Cemetery, a film set was nothing like this, for a start there were no cameras! Or direction, or site vehicles, or re-takes.

No problems... That number of vans would be consistent with football issues. And if it had just been one vehicle I might have considered the timing was consistent with rushing to get back for refs - when I worked in the City the 4.00pm siren rush to Wood St nick was a regular occurrence. But 5 in convoy?!

They wouldn't have needed to go through Underhill on sirens and lights at four in the afternoon for a seven forty five kick-off in a 5 van convoy. With a sixth van following about 5 minutes later again on siren and lights.

The way they were heading, towards the East bound South Circular, and on lights and sirens, wouldn't I think suggest that. I have lived on Underhill for close to 40 years, but it has not formed part of an emergency route until very recently, nor have we had rush hour queues until the LTN introduction. Despite the fact that it is a bus route much of it is residential and doesn't support speeding traffic safely. It's not a route I would chose to put 5 speeding police vans in convoy unless there was no alternative in accessing the A205. Which there now mainly isn't.

And another one, number 6, has just gone passed as well! I presume that the LTNs are blocking them from a more useful route. Or the surrounding road works.

I've just seen 5 police vans, the sort that the SPG or whatever they are now called use, head south down Underhill on blues and twos towards the South Circular. Would hold 40 officers if fully loaded. Anyone know what's up?

None of these would have been on the A205 - by that date - or on any of the real cross-London through routes - but clearly on residential and non-through routes (with some 'rat runs' excepted - inadvertent through-routes) from which diversion or slowing of traffic would always have been beneficial. Or precisely the sort of road which I have argued a 20mph limit was entirely appropriate. And where I would have expected there to be a significant impact on pedestrian casualties.

I have a warning from EE that they're undertaking work locally to me, I'm assuming the south end of Underhill, over the next 5 days so there may be a temporary reduction in service. Otherwise it's fine. In case you suddenly hear adverse comments, problems may only be short lived.

But over which roads? - no one, I believe, is disagreeing that a 20mph limit on residential roads (in London by far the largest mileage of roads) makes safety sense, and will and probably has, substantially reduced the impact effect of accidents, and these figures go into your statistics - you need to demonstrate that the speed limit reduction on A roads has had a significant impact as well.

They are probably better at protecting others from you rather than the reverse, but not brilliant at either.

Correlation does not indicate causation. Maybe those who got themselves vaccinated did so because they were expecting, and were, out and about more, or were in already known risky circumstances, such as care homes. It is unlikely that the NHS would continue an expensive programme if fully analysed statistics contra indicated it

It's about not being arbitrarily fined for travelling quite safely. I rarely reached 30 mph on the A205, I quite regularly ranged from 23 to 28. Because I knew what 'up to 30' felt like. And I didn't feel I was in an adversarial position with 'the authorities' . 30mph was a fine and safe limit on A roads. 20mph is on residential streets.

This study (or rather its summary) shows nothing about road type on which the accidents (or exacerbated by speed injuries) were avoided. There are far more miles of residential streets where I have argued a 20mph limit is warranted than there are of linking through roads - if the figures are based on accidents per mile, for instance, then more will have been avoided, arguably, on these residential streets.

The introduction of 20mph speed limits, initially in local (residential) streets in London was based on two 'facts' - that a collision at 20mph between a child and a car was less likely to result in life-changing or fatal injury than one at 30mph, and that a collision with a child was far more likely on a residential street where children play, walk and ride bicycles. Whilst the first 'fact' is a universal and transfers to any road type, the second is not. Which is why, initially, roads such as the South Circular (A205) remained at 30 mph as the likelihood of a child straying or playing on or about these roads was far less likely than on their local residential street. There are many roads in and around London, and not just the A205 (indeed, most A roads alongs almost all their route) where this is true (setting aside those parts of roads which pass schools, of course). The move to mark all roads within certain boroughs (at their choice) other than those covered by TFL is thus to some extent at least (and I apologise for the term) considerable over-kill. The risks of casualties of the type I mention in the first paragraph above (which are very real) are substantially reduced for many of the roads locally now deemed 20mph limited. They have the benefit (some will feel) of penalising those middle-class enough to own and use cars (and if they had taken public transport they would be travelling far faster, as some have suggested) and of course the revenues, if hypothecated, are still able to add to public finance. But the value they add to the public weal is comparatively limited compared to their costs to the general public. It would, of course, be even safer to insist that all vehicles should be preceded by a pedestrian carrying a red flag - as used to be the case - and I am sure there will be those on these pages willing to lobby for that - but I believe in proportionality, and I believe that many of the designated 20mph roads are unnecessarily limited to no real public advantage as regards their apparent intent (putting aside revenue generation).