Penguin68

There are good phone apps (such as Merlin) which will help identify bird song

A political weekly I subscribe to was often delivered to me on Monday or Tuesday after its Thursday publication. Or later. Never before Friday. They have changed their delivery from Royal Mail to a courier service and for the last 3 weeks it's been posted around 7:30 on Thursday morning or before! Presumably that must now cost in for them. The slow death of Royal Mail may not be that slow...

I suspect it may have been an end of lease requirement on the lessee. Probably negotiated with the ground landlord (Dulwich Estate) as to what should be done. Considering that they are not handing back a viable building for immediate re-leasing.

Yes, the OP meant to write flout (which was immediately changed in this post, as I was writing, to flour!) - autocorrect has a lot to answer for. We all know what was meant.

The young men selling knick-knacks on behalf of a 'rehabilitation centre' are out on Underhill. Young lad, tried to engage me, then begged saying he'd been on the street for 6 hours and might have to sleep rough. They are run by gang masters in the main and what they 'sell' is overpriced rubbish. Support young needy people through proper registered charities, not street collections such as this. The boys don't even get to keep, often, what they can scrounge. This one wasn't scary, just rather pathetic, but then I don't look that vulnerable. Watch out.

I have made this point before (apologies) but a lot of cyclists seem to demonstrate a mind set of being pedestrians on wheels. As a pedestrian I don't feel bound to obey traffic lights (I'll cross a crossing when it looks safe, not necessarily just when I have a green light) and I'll move from road to pavement to grass verge as I choose and without signalling. Just like many a cyclist. If you keep a pedestrian mind set then you don't act like a vehicle. But a person. But as a vehicle driver I expect other 'vehicles' in which category I include cycles, to act like vehicles. That may be where the problem lies.

Only if you stay off the anti LTN and anti CPZ threads perhaps? Or is debate something which only you can enter into?

Are you sure this was 'official' and not vandalism? As described, unless you saw council or council instructed workpeople doing this it sounds simply destructive. Some relatively newly planted street trees around us were attacked a few years ago by selfish idiots.

And these are probably part-time... There certainly were quite a number of partners on short hours in the past.

The England and Wales crime survey goes to about 40, 000 households (out of 24.8 million). Although it reports, at a national level, far more crime than through the police statistics it is still not statistically significant at the ward, let alone the LTN level to draw any actual trend statistics. None of the figures being quoted actually tell you what is happening, good or bad, at the individual LTN level. They may be of use at the borough or constituency level. All of us can find the comfort we are looking for in our own interpretations. Those arguing for a worsening of the situation are probably wrong, based on the published figures, AS ARE THOSE ARGUING THE OPPOSITE. It's simply a case of 'nobody knows' at the level of granularity being examined.

Hyperbole, dear boy...

It was you who chose to endorse thieves, if only for literary effect. But that's a slippery slope. Of course the wealthy are slightly more likely to be the target of thieves, but probably opportunity rather than comparative wealth is a more likely driver. A lone member of the working class on an empty lane is a more likely target for casual theft than a Duke in a crowded ballroom. Of course a Duke on an empty lane...

You presumably didn't intend to praise the criminals who steal from us as 'Robin Hoods', but if you did, shame on you. Once you believe and preach that stealing from those you perceive to be wealthy is acceptable, then pray no one starts considering you wealthy, compared to them, because you will have few grounds for complaint when you are robbed. Or your loved ones. This is the mindset which sent kulaks to the Gulags and confiscated all privately owned property.

Name 3 in the area which forms part of the 'Dulwich Square' complex. I used, for my sins, to work closely with Retail Marketing experts, their watchword was always Location, Location, Location (the three most important things in retail). If you block passing traffic and make access more difficult you inevitably reduce potential (and of course actual) footfall. Which is death, eventually, to any business whose necessary and solvent catchment area is not 'within walking distance' locals - particularly where public transport is limited/ non existent. Because night-time access is slightly easier the pub and restaurants may survive, but anything but the smallest, general, shops probably won't. Restrict access and parking and you kill retail areas, except, sometimes, in city centres, but these have to be (very) well served by public transport.

No impact, the P13 doesn't use the Underhill to Woodvale stretch of Melford. However that stretch of road is used by the 363 (both ways), but traffic is flowing relatively freely at the moment, but the work that the lights are for is on the south bound Woodvale just north of the roundabout there. When it starts. That will slightly hold up the 363 as it routes to Crystal Palace. More serious is the A205 (South Circular) entirely blocked just west of Alleyn Park Road for a block - I'm guessing emergency water works but I couldn't get close enough to confirm.

I believe there are council restrictions here on change of use. They want it to continue as a hospitality location. Until it can be shown it can't, I'm assuming.

I believe they did! And quite a lot too.

From the post above this seems to be a re-design to support a new(er) trading concept for this particular Megan's - there is nothing that I can find about either issues with Megan's stores in general closing or Megan in general being re-branded. Maybe removing (and presumably eventually replacing) the store name is part of any necessary work. What about the outlet in Dulwich? Has anyone who uses this heard anything about the sister store in ED?

I do not understand why you keep on making the point that the LTN is 5 years old. If it is an arrangement which attracts crime for whatever reason (by the way, I am not asserting it is) then that attraction will continue, making that area, compared with others, more likely to be the site of (future) crime. If you choose, along amongst others, never to lock your doors then you would not be surprised to be constantly burgled. However long you have not been locking your doors (always assuming you replace the items stolen). In general criminals choose places where (1) they are less likely to be seen or identified and where (2) the pickings are seen to be of interest. The Dulwich Village area is wealthy (2) and offers - now - roads which have less traffic and offer less visibility (1) - particularly for thefts and attacks on people, when there are fewer cars passing on their way to somewhere else. It does seem incredibly unlikely (in addition) that an individual would make up out of whole cloth a story about police warnings, nor the narrative about these. And it would be a very poor use of police resource to spend time polling and warning people who are no more at risk of crime than anyone else in the borough.

There would be terms in the lease with Dulwich Estate about condition of the property at the lease end.

Really, and if these people do ever turn up are you going to see them to confirm that? And can I watch?

First thing this morning (8.00am) traffic lights were installed at the junction of Wood Vale and Langton Rise - and switched on. A section of road in Wood Vale was coned off. So far (13.30) there has not been any sign of any workmen doing anything. By all means install the lights in advance, if that works best for you, but don't switch them on, or cone off a section of road, until workmen arrive. Unless you really really couldn't care less for the taxpayers who are paying your wages - oh, but of course, you don't - Southwark or Lewisham (the works are on the border) apparat, do you?

But I can't imagine they would have undertaken all this work, with whatever the cost is and certainly the disruption locally if TfL had not now agreed the light phasing - even if it took them a ridiculous time to do so. So not switching it on is just offensive, and if there is a fatal accident now before it's switched on then TfL should be charged with corporate manslaughter, if it can be shown the delay was at their end.

You could make apple juice from eating apples, it would be very sweet, but for cider you need cider apples which are very different.

When I started this thread in February the works were scheduled to last, quite ridiculously, to mid June, it is now the end of July and they are still not complete, even though there has been no work at all for weeks apart from some overnight tarmacing and line painting on the 25th July. The 'emergency' lights are still working, the replacement lights still covered and the safety light work to improve pedestrian crossing still not switched on. What a complete shower those responsible, and I use that word quite wrongly, are. Actually the junction seems to be working, broadly, OK, so why the hell can't they finish it? Until they do it's still a hazard.