Penguin68

Oh, I absolutely agree that it's not beautiful - but sometimes attractive frontages can help mitigate dreary architecture. And Iceland's frontage, in my view, but that doesn't mean it's right, isn't attractive.

This is a useful link to a calendar of festivals http://www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/Homework/religion/calendar.htm#oct And a good example of a school providing useful information.

I think there may be two arguments running along here, getting somewhat confused:- Argument 1 - Iceland isn't the 'right sort' of outlet for Dulwich - which I suspect is refuted by its continued, and I assume profitable, presence. If ED people are using it (which I think they are) then it's the 'right sort' of outlet for ED Argument 2 - The Iceland building, layout, 'street face' etc. is unaesthetic and ugly, and could be improved This is clearly a matter of taste, but I must admit my heart doesn't leap with joy when I see it. Clearly Iceland has a house style, and it can hardly re-build a perfectly functional building just because it's ugly, but anyone has a right to ask for a pleasant environment in which to live, and the Iceland outlet in Lordship Lane doesn't really contribute much to the beauty of the road, indeed, in my opinion, does detract from it; not that it's the only one to do that in the road. So, a 'class' argument, and an aesthetic one. One I suspect certainly started as a wind-up - the other may have legs. Where things have gone pear-shaped is where people suggest that the Iceland offer (because it isn't posh) is therefore intrinsically ugly. 'Posh = beautiful; demotic = ugly' is not a nice place to be, in my view.

If the school is employing external HR specialists they may be better placed (through experience) to see 'significant' patterns of sick leave than school admin people. In general sick absences in the public sector run much higher than the private (for broadly like-to-like occupational comparisons). It's not just a matter of totting everything up, it's about seeing when (in the week) how frequently, what reasons are being given and so on. It may also be politic, if it comes to issues of discipline, counselling etc. if the analysis is being done by an 'independent' external assessor who has no history or any obvious axe to grind.

James I think it was I rather than Fuschia who made the point about the time-lag before 45% of the working population was educated to degree level (apologies if I've missed an earlier point made by Fuschia). The subsequent point I made was that perhaps those not achieving graduate levels of pay, being themselves graduates, should be excused the debt. But I also made the point that economically we are where we are, not where we would like to be. I absolutely agree that as a nation we are fixated on academic achievement (hence the grammar/ technical school split never worked, even though in e.g. Germany a technical education is well esteemed, leading to the creation in the UK of comprehensives - where, still, the academic stream is still the target). To that end the changing of Polytechnics to Universities in the 1990s didn't help, although there were numbers of other genuine benefits which did flow from that change. One problem we do face is the belief that higher education (as a partially funded activity) is only valid for 18-22 year olds. Set up a system where anyone can apply for a University Education, and get access to the loan funds and grants etc., whenever they are ready for it - and you would get established adult joiners - looking for the qualifications that might assist an existing career, rather than late teenagers desperate for their one chance, making course decisions based on guesswork rather than knowledge, and unsure (often) 'what next?'. I write as a University teacher in a Business School who finds teaching the few mature BA students who do get in often far more rewarding than sheep dipping jejune teenagers through a course they may only be half-heartedly committed to. The further advantage from this is that 'the next step after A levels is a degree' might cease to be the standard aspirational position of parents for their youngsters - over time - thus re-validating non academic training post 18 (and post 16) as a valid and admirable career choice, not a badge of 'failure'.

James I absolutely agree with you that there will be more graduates in the future than jobs that require graduates (we have only recently upped the intake to 45% of 18 year-olds so it won't be until the now 25-30 or so year-olds are 67 that 45% of aspirant workers will be graduates) - the problem is that if undergraduate places are restricted there will be people unable to attend university who would be as readily able to get a degree and do those jobs as the people who do attend. This is an issue of faireness - are you happy that talented individuals should be excluded from opportunity? The problem with the current and proposed system is the concept that all graduates will earn a graduate premium - evidently and eventually about half of them won't. Ideally we should set pay-back as occuring when graduates start earning the 'graduate' median wage (or even the wage that differentiates graduates from non graduates) - that could well be age related - so that the 'target' payment figure increases with age. That way those lucky enough to be payed a graduate premium would then pay back their 'debt' - the others, who lost out on the availability of graduate jobs, would not have to pay based on just having been to university, rather than against the option of earning more. Of course, as a country we can no longer afford to do what is 'right' but must do what is expedient to pay down our debts. Maybe the cuts to be announced on Wednesday will force the public sector to adopt the economies already forced onto the private sector - to deliver the same or better levels of service using fewer resources. If you compare public with private levels of sickness absences, for instance, it is possible to suggest that if the public sector achieved private sector levels staff cost savings of 15% or more could readily be achieved (and yes, I have worked in both sectors, and I do know what I am talking about).

It also helps to understand locks - a 7 lever mortice is more secure than a 5 lever mortice (these latter are standard for domestic properties); Banham locks are expensive but have a good reputation (which means they discourage thieves). Hinge bolts (these fix into the side of the door opposite the locks) provide additional security where the entire door may be attacked - as do metal bars to protect the wooden frame into which the locks are normally fitted. Don't fit additional metal grills across the whole door - these can be very dangerous when it comes to fires. Glass door are always vulnerable - particularly single-glazed panels - so a metal grill over glazing (but not otherwise restricting the opening of the door) may be a good idea. Don't use good locks on the front doors and make do with mickey-mouse fittings at the rear - burglars have been known to gain access to the rear of houses and attack these - often more vulnerable, always less overlooked than street side access. The police are often very good at giving security advice. As I have said in other posts - your objective is to make your property sufficiently challenging to move a casual burglar on to someone else; but if it's known you have something tasty (and readily converted into cash) a thief will be prepared to go the extra mile to turn you over. Thieves who steal 'rubbish' kit (i.e. old TV's, videos etc.) often do it so that you will buy some tasty replacmeents with the insurance - that's why so many people who have been burgled once get burgled again a few months later. It's not just bad luck, it's good burglary planning. That's why even though the security will normally have been upgraded, it's worth the burglar coming back - more effort this time, but also a much surer reward.

Insurer's worries aren't actually about past movement (unless this has already so destablalised the building that collapse is immminent) but about future movement. Movement 'in the past' doesn't necessarily imply either (a) that this was caused by subsidence or (b) that subsidence, if it did occur, is still active. If the movement your building has suffered hasn't occured in the recent past then you can not know if there is still a problem, or (probably) if the past problem was subsidence, i.e. a collapse of subsoil under your foundations not associated with a direct cause (such as German bombs) which is not now actively affecting your property. Insurers (who are lazy gits) are happy to avoid risk by assuming that all past movement is still-active subsidence, but this ain't so - some insurers draw huge boundaries around known areas of subsidence (such as clay substrates) and then claim all properties within this boundary are suspect. As I have said, unless you have certain knowledge that any movement in your house is definitely and certainly associated with subsidence you don't have to declare such (lack) of knowledge. Any building (particulary but not only with timber framing) will have moved if it's been standing for more than 50 years or so, without that necessarily being in any way worrying. I have a badly cracked front garden wall whose cracking is directly associated with heavy lorries using road-humps as take-off points, but if I didn't know better I might guess at 'structural' sob-soil movement underneath the wall. If you have worries, call in your own surveyor or structural engineer - don't let the insurers scare you with their post-code lotteries.

They normally choose the night when the door-ringing gypsies and paedo clowns aren't out and about, of course. I would expect the littler extortionists to be demanding sweets with menances on the Saturday, and the larger ones whenever they want to. It's getting to be like November the 5th - a date which just forms an epicentre of mayhem. Oh and edited to say 'Bah! Humbug!'

While James may well be right about the dryness of the summers (not something I particulary noticed in 2009, I must say) he does not mention that the water table in London has been rising, as industry (particularly but not exclusively the brewing industry) has ceased to be major water users. In some area this has caused problems of damp and flooding. It also depends, if you use your front garden for parking, how you do this. Concrete and tarmac will cause run-off, for instance, gravel over membrane, or brick paving over sand are porous and much less likely to cause problems of drying off, indeed where vegitation has been removed more water rather than less may be percolating towards the foundations and their supporting soil structures. Over time, tree stumps and their supporting roots will rot away, which will leave eventual voids - I would much rather have the stump properly removed and the resultant hole properly re-filled. However what looks like 'subsidence' (i.e. evidence of wall movement) can be caused by the removal of trees close to the property. This will almost certainly have stabilised quickly, and if you have past evidence of trees having been removed may well re-assure a surveyor that he/ she is not looking at a more deep seated problem of underlying land movement. Most houses locally were built to allow for some elements of movement, cracks may be unsightly but, if they are neither extending or opening now, should not be worrying.

The answer to 'has the propery, to the best of your knowedge, suffered from subsidence' requires you either to have evidence that it has, i.e. from previous surveys, evidence of remedial work to cure subsidence etc., or to be sufficiently adept as a trained surveyor that you can assess a property for active subsidence. Finding evidence of former house movement is not evidence of subsidence - many houses were 'moved' locally by the effect of bombs exploding near to them, for instance, 65-70 years ago. I would not personally rely on hearsay ('the neighbour said they were told there was a subsidence problem'). Of course, if you are buying a property, you need to get good information from your own surveyor, for your own peace of mind, but if that informaation does not confirm active subsidence, but only talks about past evidence of movement (without actually confirming subsidence as a cause) you can reasonably answer 'no' to the question. In my view.

That sort of thing used to be The Bill filming - I remember coming home to armed police around Langton Rise running up the road - came round the corner to see the cameras etc. but bit of a bad moment for a minute.

Muzzling all dogs over a certain size/ weight because they might be dangerous is like jailing all teenagers because some are criminal thugs. The vast majority of dogs (actually of most breeds), like the vast majority of teenagers, are harmless and engaging (well, the dogs anyway). Responsible owners know when their dogs are nervy, aggressive, difficult with other dogs, difficult with children etc. and act accordingly. Irresponsible owners, like the one described, don't give a monkey's, and legislation as described won't impact them. We can't afford to employ sufficient dog-wardens/ pounds to police any such blanket muzzling requirement legislation anyway. Would wardens need to carry scales with them to weigh the dogs? Law-making based on exceptions is generally poor law-making. If you want to cut down on this sort of thing, don't penalise the owners of non-aggressive dogs (who generally (the dogs) don't like wearing muzzles - would you?) - make sure that ownership of an out-of control dog can be severely punished - confiscation of all animals, life-time banning from keeping animals, fines and imprisonment. If it becomes punitive to have and train aggressive dogs the owners will begin to desist, because the alternatives are disproportionate to the 'pleasures' of keeping devil dogs.

An old scam used to be to break a large window pane (stone throw etc.) then wait for it to be replaced, then lift it out and gain access whilst the putty was still pliable. Was your window recently installed? How was the unit fixed into the aperture?

What a liberty, this is where our council tax is going! Eh? - The Royal Mail/ Post Office have nothing to do with the local authority. I cannot see how your council tax is going to support the Royal Mail. There is, in rural areas, sometimes council support for local sub post-offices/ village shops (not owned by the Royal Mail, but operated on their behalf by independant traders), but not in London.

Oh, that'll be the Zippo Circus Clowns winding themselves up for a fright-fest throughout ED. They rush round linking hands with the gypsies and ringing door bells. It's a tradition thing.

In general the rule about security is that anyone can break in anywhere, the trick is to make your place more difficult than others', so that the bad guys chose theirs not yours. (In evolutionary terms, you don't have to run faster than the cheetah, just faster than the next antelope to you that is being chased by the cheetah). Sometimes more difficult is more costly - so that the bad guys will not think they will get a great return from attacking you - they will need more and better kit, ladders, crowbars, glass cutters, expertise in lock picking and so on. So they will go for the cheap and easy option (that's why safes are cash rated - they are designed to cost more to break into than the likely value being kept in them). So if you make your place more secure it will keep out the casual thief, ie, the one who doesn't care who he burgles as long as he burgles someone, but not the thief who is after your Picasso etchings in particular. The more inviting your property, in terms of ease of access, the more the wrong sort of person will be invited. Conclusion - invest sufficiently in your security to keep people out, but don't spend more on security than your property might be worth. A better gate is still probably a good investment, as would be sensors pointed at the gate to light up or sound out if someone comes over the top.

Whats the train line got to do with it? are they commuting to Sainsburys - in a sense they probably are - railway lines form safe and wild channels for wild life to move around in (and live in) - no people, relatively few predators - like the banks of motorways they have become wild-life refuges. It is rare for anyone to lay poison or traps in railway lines, as they do in more people frequented areas.

What age would that be? (I'm on the wrong side of 50 and not a gym bunny at all.) Try the wrong side of 60 - and with arthritic knees

I don't know whether anyone elese has noticed, but Holland is a notoriously flat place - London on the other hand, and particularly around here isn't. (Notice that almost all the local stations other the the 3 Dulwich stations have 'hill' in their name.) Once you reach a certain age much of ED and its surrounds becomes quite a struggle - apart from the less than bike-friendly roads we have generally around here.

As the person who started the taxi-driver hare - I should point out that I was commenting on perceptions which might create a price differential between apparently similar housing north and south of the river. In fact, my own experence of whether drivers are prepared to go South of the river are as mixed as anyones - it does help to say, vaguely, 'Camberwell', (or even 'Vauxhall') and then just direct from there. Although there is no tube, taking a train into central london from ED (granted there are fewer of them) is actually much quicker than travelling the equivalent distance by tube 'up north'. But perceptions place us as a transport black spot. And that does impact housing prices.

Cant understand why the place is so much more affordable than say, Muswell Hill, Crouch end etc because its style and Chic are pretty much beyond them both. It's South of the river. Taxi's don't come here, neither do the tubes. Neither, thank god, do people, generally, from North of the river, because of what they have heard.

You can find out about BT Openszone availability here http://www.btopenzone.com/find/uk/index.jsp - in this area most will be via BT Fon, which is spare capacity allowed by private BT Broadband users off their wireless systems. You would have to have a BT customer near you who has enabled FON to get a good signal. The strong Openzone signals are going to be in town - the West End and City. I have checked on the map you can link to via the BT site http://btopenzone.hotspot-directory.com/results.php and there are no Openzone sites in ED - they are all offered via BT FON. So if you want signal locally you will be relying on the generosity of those living around you (people who offer FON connectivity themselves can then access FON spots nationwide on their travels)

PS Love the argument that as a 'foreigner' I'm not entitled to an opinion, what other unpleasantness is hidden behind your veneer of bonhomie? Surely the issue wasn't about foreigness but about lack of immediate knowledge. To challenge 'anecdotal' views of those who are actually on site, as it were, seems a tad presumptuous - none of us (of course) is either undertaking independant, statistically significant surveys or giving evidence in court, when hearsay evidence could be discarded. Those who have been posting, in the main, are however here (in ED) to observe/ participate in the effects of the lights now, and most remember the position before the lights - I certainly do and I recall that crossing the street at the crossing was entirely safe. Drivers tend to be more careful of crossings than they do of lights - because they actually have to think and observe. And I definitely 'rat run' to avoid the hold up at the lights. I have lived relatively close to the junction (continually) for more than the last 20 years.

You are probably out of 'line-of-sight' of the Vod mast - that is a problem with ED - hills can cut signal - microwaves work best when there isn't intervening ground (i.e. hills) to dampen the signal. I always lose signal coming over the brow of Dog Kennel Hill, and again driving up Sydenham Hill.