Penguin68

I'm afraid this isn't quite true - the furniture being sold is pretty well at the price you can buy it on-line - but it's an effective sales ploy (which they have been using for some time). The actual furniture is of good quality and soundly sourced regarding wood - but it isn't that sort of bargain - its pretty well at list price for internet sales - but you do get to see it and it is delivered - so that's a bonus.

I have just been stuck next to a Greenwich dustcart. Greenwich collects all 3 types of rubbish weekly (they call our blue box stuff 'dry recyling' which seems sensible), and all their bins are the same colour (green, as it happens) the different usages being distinguished by different colour lids (green, blue and black). This makes the garish colour effect much less noticeable, and has the advantage, I would guess, that they need order and stock only one colour of bin, but multi-colours of lids. This must be more efficient. Obviously we are where we are on this - but it does show what planning and forethought could have achieved. And weekly collections for all classes of rubbish...

There are, all over the country, small deep 'bunkers' which were actually the working locations of the Royal Observer Corps (since disbanded) post-war. These bunkers had room enough for 3-4 people and were to be manned (for real, rather than for training) in the event of (a) nuclear war or (b) a civil nuclear incident. They were equipped with simple photographic plates (forms of pin-hole cameras) which would be able to capture the size (by scale of the image), height and direction of a bomb exploding. Observers would then, using land-lines, report these to a Regional Central HQ (I was stationed in one of these) where the bomb would be triangulated (from 3 or more reports) with its position and size known (and whether a ground or air-burst). Additional equipment in the bunkers were radiation counters so that radioactive clouds could be plotted - this last role would also have operated in case of a civilian emergency. Goodness knows whether any of this would ever actually have worked as planned - thank goodness it was never called-on to do so - though the ROC was put into stand-to mode on a number of occasions during the cold war. The bunker in the golf course is most likely to have been an ROC observation bunker, I would think, rather than a bolt-hole for government people. Edited to say - I have just spotted the post above this which confirms that this was an ROC post.

Another unintended consequence - many people recyling food containers will be washing them. rinsing them out - so now we are using clean water to wash refuse - good call eh? at a time when we see clean water as a diminishing resource (and if it's hot water then we are additionally wasting energy). To wash rubbish. Good grief.

A decent Ukrainian restaurant would be good Even in the Ukraine

We were supplied with two packs of (small) biodegradeable plastic sacks to put in the (tiny) brown kitchen caddy and thence (I assume) into the large brown organic waste (I suppose it is now, not just garden) bin. Thak god I don't have cats so a cat litter problem isn't one I have to address - but I assume it must be bio-degradeable? Or is the 'litter' mineral?

Does anyone else think it's (a) ironic and (b) confusing that it is the green bin which is for non recylable, non compostable material? On a wider point, one of the reasons why recyling etc. doesn't work well in the UK is that every council has different rules, packaging etc. for their refuse - so you cannot learn about it once and re-use that knowledge. When I had to look after my parents (in a different borough) I could never remember how to recyle their material - that borough separated paper from cardboard, accepted cans but not (any) plastic containers and had different colours for their recyling bins. It also collected things differently - so that some recyling was collected weekly with standard refuse, other types only fortnightly. Nightmare.

I think it's neat the way they have left a pothole in the narrowed carriageway where everyone has to drive over it, or swerve dangerously to avoid it.

If there is a price premium/ price penalty; then you will be gaining/ losing by that when you buy - in fact the price differential will very possibly narrow between equivalent premises over time; it is less likely, in my opinion, to widen. Indeed some of the SE15 property prices may go up if/ when travel links to them improve. Choose somewhere you want to live in, look on your home as just that, not an investment vehicle. Unless you plan to move quite quickly it will be impossible even to start guessing where property prices will go, by postcode, by street, by house type. Of more concern might be forecast on interest rate changes, assuming you need a mortgage. Now may not be the time to over extend yourself, unless you can be sure of hyper inflation deflating your real terms debt (happened to me in the 1980s - great!).

James Where do you think the recycling is ending up then? There is virtually no market for recyled plastics, glass or paper in the UK (metals are a different matter, but e.g. heavy metals from computers and mobiles are much more cheaply collected in the far east, where in the main they are e-used for production of electronic kit). That such recyling massively reduces life-span is well known. The cost of recyling paper and cardboard to anything like a high standard of finish is high, and the cost to the environment when you consider the necessary use of bleaches etc. higher. The use of renewed wood pulp in managed forests is actually much better for the environment - trees growing is generally a good thing, chemical processes to recyle paper less so. If we assume (for the sake of argument) that (a) we have a lot of long-life rubbish and that (b) the south east is sinking into the sea as the land re-balances after the huge weight of the ice-age ice sheet disappearing is allowing Scotland and the North to tilt back up, then the obvious solution to both problems would be to construct sea defences along the North Sea and Channel coast with 'land fill' - apparently with a life of 100s of thousands of years - acting as the central core - the creation of such dykes would be a valuable capital investment to boost the economy, as well as solving 2 'environmental' problems with one stone, so to speak (one non bio-degradable plastic sack perhaps?) The Netherlands seems happy enough with about a third of its land-mass being below sea level behind dykes; why shouldn't we?

It is very useful to hear from the 'horse's mouth' about this. And to see such an openness to listen. The point about demographic changes is well made - and it is good to hear that the issue is viability, not profit. There are many more people with young families now - something which addressed their needs (in a non sectarian manner) might be appropriate. And if a day-time user could be found to generate sufficient (or close to it) for viability, the Father might want to consider whether offering exclusive daytime use would necessarily preclude evening or night usage which was compatable with the daytime users, and which, on its own, wouldn't necessarily cost-in.

Tommy Trinder died in 1989; Arthur Askey in 1982 (nearly 30 years ago) - if either were seen around here 10 years ago it's rather more a case for Ghostbusters than I Spy.

A Church placing income above the needs of parishioners and the local community, surely not..

What on earth are you putting in the boxes?! My experience suggests that fox cubs are happy to look for things to play with; balls, shoes etc. appear on my lawn regularly, so searching in recylcing boxes for things to amuse them doesn't surprise me. If it's adult foxes doing the disturbing then they are more likely to thinks there's something edible there. However you have to really scrub old fish cans (particularly sardines) to remove any scent, as far as animals with a very developed sense of smell are concerned.

Moss = Richard Ayoade who is also a writer and director (the well reviewed Submarine was his first release). He was there with his family.

The sound of aircraft will be enhanced/ reduced depending on the local atmospheric conditions, so maybe its the weather, not the increase in planes/ decrease in flying heights that is making the apparent noise louder (which I haven't myself noticed). The ambient sound will also make a difference on perceived noise - which is why planes seem noiser at night, when there is less traffic noise for them to compete with.

If these stations are not to be manned then they must at least be regularly visited by supervisory staff, so that things like lighting, hazards, working machinery etc. can be checked. The stations cannot be abandonded, even where ticketing staff are no longer to be available. Perhaps the wonderful Barry could indicate what will be the planned support to those stations who lose permanently based ticket office staff? Will there be non-ticketing staff there, at least some of the time?

I am not convinced that the USA experience, as evidenced in the link, is directly applicable to the UK - the history of 'bad' mortgage loan decisions by US lenders is very different, in the main, although some UK lenders did start to copy-cat. The UK government never, unlike the US government, virtually mandated toxic loans to encourage house ownership amongst the economically disadvantaged.

A single retail unit, empty for a short time, is never going to be an issue; multiple units, empty for a long time, is. If an empty unit is filled by a pound shop, by a charity shop, by a pawn shop, this tells you something about the way an area is trending, which does have an impact on other shops and their desire to stay, on property values, sometimes even on crime figures. All of these things impact on quality of life, if you are local. Lordship Lane transformed over the last 25 years or so, we lost some excellent shops (and many more dogs) - but gained a lot of shops which have added to the local quality of life (and local house prices). Concerns about these things do not (necessarily) mark out the losers amongst us. Gratuitous insults might.

The rubric says that it gives the peak/ off peak frequency per hour - so the South Eastern Line is 3 in peak and 2 off peak - so every 20 or 30 minutes depending.

There has been previous forum discussion about this - 'sometime.. never' with the odds on 'never' appears to be the concensus.

I hate speed humps with a great hatred, they ruin my car, reduce the life of my tyres and lorries which leap over them are putting cracks in my front garden wall. However - since they were installed there have been no accidents in my road involving children, and no speeding cars crashing into parked cars around my house - used to happen every 18 months or so, lost several wing mirrors, a car's rear bumper and my neighbour had a car ploughing into her front room. So, on balance, much as I hate speed humps, they have actually improved things locally. They still have to be engineered right - but they do a job. Whether they are needed in quite such concentrations I don't know, some of the smaller cross routes are more hump than road now, but the principle seems sound enough. I wish in the UK they would consider the French habit of putting a 'rapel' and the in-place speed limit on signs - regular reminders of 20 mph limits might encourage those using the roads to slow down - in long runs within a 20mph zone it's quite easy to forget (particularly I suspect if you are driving a stop-start delivery van) what the local prevaling limit is.

Speed humps which are out of spec (too tall, too steep) can have 3 downsides 1. Heavy vehicles going over them may come down with even greater thumps, causing both noise and damage to walls 2. Normal vehicles going over them with relatively low bodies may damage the underbody/ exhaust systems even when going over slowly. 3. People using vehicles where they have injuries/ back problems may have those exacerbated where they bump/ jar more than normal regulations would require - again even when crossing at a 'reasonable' speed (normally actually under 20mph). Those are 3 good reasons why humps should be 'in spec' - when they are wrong even very low speeds can cause the problems listed above. I have commented elsehwere that where humps are on roads which themselves are going up/ down hills it is possible for the hump to be 'in spec' measured from one side, and out of spec measured from the other (down hill) side.

how good the local cats are at catching birds. There's a new kitty in our street and I've found two dead bodies in the garden already and no more sparrows on the bird feeder To all you cat-lovers and cat-keepers and cat fanciers out there - BAH!!!

When I was young (1950s) I remember that sparrows used to go round mob-handed - then more recently I've only seen them in the garden in twos and threes, if that. This year however a flock of 15+ (as far as I can count them) descends regularly on the feeders on my patio. They move round together in a mob, although often separating into 2 smaller groups before coming back together again. Has anyone else noted a recent plethora of garden sparrows?