Penguin68

This is the link to the free Gutenburg e-book in French http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks03/0300771h.html

Councils do not introduce controlled parking to benefit residents, in the main, but as a valuable revenue source (fees and fines). Curb space is an asset they can sell/ rent. As soon as controlled parking is introduced into a neighbourhood, even if initially in a limited fashion, it races out, as visiting cars are pushed further and further away from the initial site of controlled parking, therebye creating a further argument for its extension. Introduce it now on Melbourne Grove and all the roads leading off Lordship Lane - probably through to the police station, will be controlled parking within 5 years. Even where, initially, resident parking is 'free' it is often rationed and soon is charged for - 'just an administrative cost you understand' .... And visitor parking permits will certainly come at a cost. Cars will be fined for overlapping bays or encroaching white lines - it will be a parking control company bonanza as wardens are targeted on revenue generation. Within a lustrum the quality of life across ED will be diminished as car owning residents find themselves in a constant car war of attrition with 'the management'. And the value of my house will soar as I have off street parking for several cars!

There are two possible issues being talked about here 1. Fixed line broadband - delivered via telephone circuit or via cable to a modem/router box in your premises. Most of these now offer wireless connectivity from the router out into your home - you connect wirelessly to it, although there will also be ethernet connectors within the router using which you can connect your PC etc. directly using an ethernet cable. These wireless broadcasting routers have a limited range - the most 'powereful' uses the wireless 'n' standard; but you will also still find earlier standards being used - your computer etc. will need an 'n' receiver to make use of this, but generally most 'n' routers are backwards compatable with earlier standards (but you won't get the benefit of the 'n' standard). You can buy re-transmitters (wireless range extenders) which can pick-up and re-broadcast the wireless signal - hence extending the range within your home. There are two possible problems with wireless access - the topology of your home (lots of walls, many floors) - where the signal becomes attenuated/ lost - and other wireless activity interfering with the signal (that's the basis of the latest BT ads for their new router). Some of these can be handled (if you have telephone line access to broadband) by changing the plate in your line-box (the telephone wall-box your router plugs into) - although older plug and socket installations can't take these modified plates. Others can be met by ensuring that other wireless apparatus (and e.g. microwave ovens) aren't too close to your router or computer. 2. You will also have problems if the signal to your router from outside has problems, including attenuation and loss - this will mean that your broadband is slow/ patchy/ drops out and won't be an issue you can address yourself. 3. If you use wireless (not fixed line) broadband connection - i.e. through a mobile 'dongle' - then you may also suffer signal loss/ degradation at the broadcast, not the receiving, end - and of course any other interference problems associated with mobile telephony (cell contention, topology, adverse weather conditions etc. etc.)

But surely size isn't important

It is of course true that the families who send children to private schools are not rate/ council tax payers, nor do they pay taxes to fund state education for others, nor indeed do their children in any way deserve to live. Or have I (and others) got this wrong? Are lollipop people there to protect state educated children only, or to protect children who live locally, the children of council tax payers, for instance? Perhaps lollipop people should be checking whether the childfen crossing are bona-fide state educated scions of council tax payers, and if not pushing them in front of oncoming vehicles. To put it another way again) - are lollipop people about protecting local childen crossing roads, or they are about protecting enrolled state school pupils - are they the servants of the public or the schools?

Part of the earlier thread on this forum suggested that until there was 'proof' that drivers stopped at traffic lights (we are talking about the removal of lollipop people from already controlled crossings) then they should remain. No one is talking, as I understand it, about removing lollipop people from crossings whee they are the only safe-crossing resource. I would ask what proof dulwichmum has that people do not stop at traffic lights. Certainly, at the time of day that the lollipop people are operating a substantial amount of traffic is drivers taking kids to school, so they are likely to be sensitive to children crossing. My experience of the crossing at the Townley Road intersection with Lordship Lane is that the belt-and-braces approach of lollipop and traffic light was completely pointless - the lollipop person (sensibly) worked with the lights, but that isn't a light at other times that I have noticed people 'jumping'. It used to annoy me to see this when my daughter (who was lightly struck by a car once crossing the road to school, but suffered no serious injury, just shock) had to cross that road to her school with no crossing support whatsoever. That was somewhere which now does have support, (eventually) but is a crossing directly opposite school gates on a busy road. I wonder, she hasn't declared this, whether dulwichmum has children who would be effected by this proposal herself?

I should have added that there is also an interesting product that extends the range for fixed connections piggy-backing on your mains circuits - the router connects via an ethernet to a special plug into your ring main - another plug with an ethernet connecter can then be plugged into the back of your computer.

This is a typical product - search on 'wireless range extenders' http://www.sitecom.com/range-extenders-and-access-points

Some boroughs (I don't know whether Southwark is one) place an 'automatic' preservation order on all trees above a certain girth - on the basis that they are (or must be, at that size) an established part of the environment and would need council permission to be removed. Sometimes this order reflects only trees that are visible from roads, or other areas with public access. This is separate from 'conservation areas' I believe. This sort of blanket authority is clearly more cost effective than having to assess individual preservation orders tree by tree.

'Public' trees are often pollarded - although this initially looks bad it soon grows out, and the pollarded trees have much lighter canopies and smaller branches - this can be very advantageous in either wintery or very windy weather, when the trees are much less likely to be damaged by snow/ frost or wind. I believe (but I am happy to be corrected) that smaller canopies also lead to less water consumption - so that in a heavily 'treed' area where the canopies are reduced trees are less likely to be stressed during dry or draught conditions. Keeping trees pruned and reduced (maintaining them) is also more cost effective than having to make 'emergency repairs' following adverse conditions, and indeed more likely to ensure that trees aren't lost entirely.

Out of interest this would seem to be exactly the sort of anti-social behaviour which ASBOs were designed for, though I am somewhat sanguine about their effectiveness.

It is very worth while checking air bricks - if they are broken then rodents (and especially rats, but mice as well) can get into the crawl space under the house via them. From there they can climb up and (I have experience of this) gnaw through the floor and enter the house that way. You can fix a sort of steel gauze across any areas you consider vulnerable - rats tend not to go through this, though they probably could if they tried. Unless you leave scraps for birds in squirrrel proof containers then rats will be encouraged to come into your garden. That means that it's a bad idea to hang balls of fat in trees etc. If you have foxes then you are less likely to have rats in your garden.

For those Dulwich Cyclists who want to speed (for perfectly good reasons, no doubt) can I suggest that the Herne Hill Velodrome is an excellent place for fast cycling (obviously inappropriate for those cyling to get somewhere, but not for those cycling for exercise's or speed's sake, to show off to themselves their/ their bike's capabilities) - vide the time trial comment by the OP.

I suspect that, outwith the somewhat bullish terms in the attached article, the Coop has not actually yet overcome the logistics issues of its Somerfield take-over. Sainsbury's also had a major problem about 5 years ago, which it did overcome. Whatever the reason, empty shelves or old stock will certainly lead to loss of customers locally, and should do so. http://www.co-operative.coop/food/whats-hot/Food-news/New-depot-will-complete-Co-operative-Food-Logistics-overhaul/

Bees swarm regularly at this time of year (ish) - it will be a Queen splitting the hive to set up a new colony. If you call the police they often have a list of local bee-keepers who can collect the swarm and locate it in a new hive.

CHUGGING - derived originally from SUGGING - Selling Under the Guise of Research - i.e. those peope who used to pretend to be Market Researchers and would then try to sell a financial vehicle - invented as a term by the MR industry who were upset that these people were bringing valid street MR into disrepute. 'Chuggers' don't always try to raise Charity under the Guise of Research, but, like Suggers - approached you in the street with a clip-board like legitimate Market Researchers did. but then tried to drum up donations.

Br'er is a shortening of Brother - probably a leaning towards the usage of St Francis who referred to animals as 'brother and sister'. Not an unreasonable thought, in so far as co-existence with the natural world, where possible, seems a broadly good thing (common cold viruses an exception, of course!).

I know this sound strange, but professional burglars are somewhat less worrying - they tend not to go in for gratuitous violence against people or property, smashing what they can't steal and using your living room as a loo (becuase that leaves traceable samples), and they would prefer not to be seen or identified. Those stealing to feed a drug habit (or just anti-social vandals) leave a trail of wanton destruction, take things with sentimental but little pecuniary value and are much more 'in your face' (sometimes literally). The only (traumatic) impact professional thieves now generally have is that in stealing things they also steal the data now stored on those things, which makes back-up more important. These people seem to be targetiing portable electronics and to stay on the ground floor, so jewelry seems not to be a target. There are also looking for quick pickings, so locks and safes may be a good investment. As of cousre are alarms.

the complaining doesn?t sound that different than the people on buses who complain about being fined when they caught by surprise inspections. Travelling on public transport without a valid ticket is a clear attempt to defraud (the bus company suffers a financial loss by carrying you for no fare paid) - many of the infringments we are talking about are victim-less 'crimes' with no attempt to defraud. In may cases even the proximate reason for restricting road usage - to avoid congestion etc. is irrelevant, at times of low traffic intensity etc. These are 'crimes' where no one has suffered or can be demonstrated to have suffered - it's just an infringement of a petty restriction, and it is clear that pursuing such infringements has everything to do with gaining money and nothing to do with making life better for residents and other road users. If you see intentional fraud as the moral equivalent of overstaying a parking time by a minute or two, or parking an inch across a double yellow line, then I suggest you have your moral compass recalibrated.

When you consider the plethora of parking etc. fines which have been over-turned by magistrates because the people operating them didn't know the rules (and these were only a tiny sub-set of driving rules directly associated with what they were doing as a job of work) then to expect all of us (trained drivers or not) to be aware of all the minutiae of rules frequently passed locally or since we ourselves passed our tests is to expect too much. We (of course) drive sensibly and carefully and considering other road users but that isn't nearly sufficient when the multitude of chargeable offences proliferates by the minute. The Labour government in its ten years of office created over 3,000 new crimes, a portion of them associated with driving and roads. Local ordinances create more offences. We have at least 2 speed limits in ED (20mph & 30mph) - if you are within either zone you have to remember* what it is (some may recall the debate about whether Wood Vale was one or the other, even the signage was confusing there). At least the French put regular 'Rapel' signs up to remind you what the local limit is, but then they don't use traffic offences where they can use taxation to fund their activities. There is no easy way of telling as some local streets are 20mph and other identical local streets 30mph - Underhill is 20, Wood Vale 30 - I challenge anyone standing out of sight of an entry sign to tell just by the street they are in which is which. (*Remembering is easy if you are driving continuously, not if you have stopped off for a time and then got back in the car)

The fact remains however, that the rules of the road need to be enforced This rather begs the question; do they? If the 'rules of the road' said that red cars couldn't drive in the right hand lanes on roads orientated East:West on alternate Thursdays in months where rainfall exceeded the average you would be happy that these rules were enforced? In a civilised scoiety rules that should be enforced are ones that we all, broadly, sign-up to. Many of the traffic and parking rules appear arbitrary and designed to catch-out motorists. Speed limits on motorways where work is going on (and where work people might need to access traffic lanes at times) are sensible and necessary - impose them at 3.00 in the morning when there are no workmen, and no other cars for a mile on either side and this is about arbitrary revenue generation (and no, I haven't been caught in this way, although friends have). Box junctions and fast changing lights (there were lots around Holborn a few years ago) ensured a steady revenue stream - congestion charging was brought in to speed traffic and ease congestion - and immediately further revenue generating restrictions were brought in (like dedicated lanes) which brought down traffic flow back to the 12mph which had made the case for congestion charging in the first place. Just because 'it's a rule', doesn't mean that it carries some immense and over-riding moral authority. Unless you believe that our loal councillors, by virtue of having been elected (and their officials, by virtue of having been employed) suddenly gain some over-arching and awesome moral authority and capability, transcending them from the venal and ambitious politicians and apparatchiks that they were before their transfiguration. (Of course there are good ones, just not that many in my experience).

There is always a confusion, doubly confounded by operative payment incentives, between a council's duty to ensure that agreed restrictions are 'policed' - those restrictions nominally reflecting issues of, for instance, keeping traffic running smoothly and safely - with a desire to use their powers to raise revenues through enforcement of rules designed to raise revenues. Where councils use motorists as a form of unofficial taxation sources (as opposed to the offical taxation of charging for parking and parking permits) this places them morally in the same position as wheel clampers on private space - i.e. lower than a rats **se. Councils, let us not forget, are elected by us to run local things effectively for us, they are the servants of the people not their masters or owners. Too many councillors and (especially) council officials forget this. I would rather pay higher council taxes, which are open, declared and can be debated and discussed than watch councils fill their coffers through arbitrary and unthinking stealth taxes through fines, often handled by outsourced companies targeted on revenue raising and allowed to act in unfair ways. Governments and local government now spend their time criminalising individuals, using the arm of state enforcement to draw money from us which they fear we would not pay were we allowed to vote on it.

A single sodomist hanged on 'Peckam Common' (however wide a net that casts) does not suggest any regularity of that area being used for executions - the original quote would appear to be more accurate if it had said that "In eighteenth-century Surrey [...] a condemmed criminal was [...] hanged [...] on Peckham Common [...]".

From a web site ( http://www.capitalpunishmentuk.org/horsemon.html ) on the Horsemonger Lane Gaol it appears that Up to 1800, Surrey executions had been carried out at Guildford, Kingston and on Kennington Common using a cart to turn the condemned off from, prior to the opening of Horsemonger Lane. If the Rye was used for executions at all, this appears to have been unusual. Normally public executions would take place where there was a significant local population to ensure a good (and commercially lucrative) crowd. (Justice done, seen to be done, and a good profit for someone).

It is always a good idea to have a mortice lock on the back door as well - and some insurers suggest using those concealed bolts that fit inside the door frame (and need a slotted key to open them) top and bottom. That means that even when the back door has glass in it, it cannot be broken and bolts easily shot back. Many burglar alarms allow you to isolate areas, so that you can operate an alarm downstairs but still move around upstairs, that way someone breaking in downstairs triggers the alarm. No use if you have animals, of course.