Penguin68

I think in some cases people who are planning to go to the conflict area to offer help and support think they may as well travel in a full car or van as not. That's a lovely sentiment of theirs, but (see above) it may not be the best way those not planning to offer direct help and support can best direct their charitable instincts.

Really? Does it still work with just the nose? I assumed they were totally different tests. I believe the pathogens appear earlier in the throat than the nose, so a full screen may pick up infection earlier - but if you are symptomatic the chances are that they are in the nose by then. So throat and nose are more thorough. So long as one bar appears you will know that the test 'has worked'. If you were prepared to 'waste' a test you could try just nose and then throat and nose on another slide to see if the results were the same. I suspect that for many, when they do both test sites, their throat swab was anyway ineffective - it's quite difficult to hit the right spot on yourself, so many apparent dual tests were actually really just a nose swab.

Yes, I did in fact donate to that. It seemed to address the most immediate needs during a time of conflict and (validated by e.g. Bellingcat) attacks on civilians.

Can I urge people locally to consider donating cash and not things to Ukraine and refugees in the front-line states - things (such as toys) may be appropriate for refugees who do end up in the UK - but cash will allow the right (needed) stuff to be bought locally in the front-line states rather than incurring costs of sorting and transport across Europe. And needs I believe are now for medical equipment and staff to support the wounded. And choose well-known charities (such as the British Red Cross) - I'm afraid that these events bring rogues out of the woodwork who will set-up scam charities. Check the background with the Charity Commission if you find an otherwise obscure charity that rings your bells. Because this is happening in Europe there is a huge and effective infrastructure in place (and goods available to buy locally in the front-line states) which means that there are no actual shortages in the medium and long term even if specific localities may be short of some things immediately [of course, there are shortages in Ukraine itself, but getting stuff there is non-trivial and shouldn't be being done by blokes in a van].

No, I was responding to the 'can't see your point' post. And your comment is the equivalent of suggesting that to criticise, e.g. the raising of National Insurance rates now would mean that the criticiser was against all taxation, or against funding the NHS. You can object, not that I actually was in that post, to specific traffic law changes without exclaiming there should be no traffic laws.

Possibly the implied point was that were the LTN roads still to be open, then traffic could have naturally diverted away from the (albeit it appears short-term) blockage, thus allowing traffic to flow freely and not contribute to local pollution levels by being 'standing'. Additionally, when traffic is blocked (for whatever 'good' reason) emergency vehicles used to have alternative routes to choose from, until roads were blocked by planters etc. (now I think to be addressed, if only in part).

It was still possible (26th Feb) to order these on line. But now only every 3 days, not daily as previously (for those with large families and a need to test).

I feel as though I need to know more about how these count tubes work. This may help https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-black-strips-laid-across-a-road-measuring

I received yesterday an e-mail reminder from Southwark to renew my garden waste collection subscription (still at ?40 as last year) - which runs from April 1st 2022 to March 31st 2023. The system for doing so on line works quite well - (it does ask you to confirm your email, having emailed you (!)) which does seem a little silly - but I think it actually simply logs you in to your account that way. If you are expecting a reminder (and haven't got one) you might check in your SPAM folder. If you don't pay for things on-line I'm guessing doing so will be slightly more awkward than it is via on-line and credit card.

Surely there are just 2 key issues here:- 1. Do the charges for use of the area take into account the full time of occupation and not just the time of the event itself? 2. Does the contract place the costs of restoring the area (including re-turfing or re-seeding, levelling etc.) clearly on the shoulders of the Gala organisers and not on local taxpayers? [And I am assuming that costs of e.g. policing will also be picked up by the organisers) I would add a third, perhaps, that the income from the event should be ring-fenced for expenditure on Southwark parks, so that park users got a clear benefit from their temporary loss of use. An event, such as the Gala, may be annoying to some people living locally, but also be seen as bonus by others, for whom attendance will be made easy. For convenience I assume, without evidence to the contrary, that the local benefits and dis-benefits will broadly cancel each other out.

Where do you think greengrocers (and most other shops) get their stock from if not from a wholesale source? Yes, retailers make money by 'breaking bulk' that is by breaking up a big lot into lots of small lots - so that an individual can buy 5 oranges (or just one) from them and not 200 at a time. Breaking bulk is a cost (the effort of breaking bulk and the risk of not selling it all, particularly for perishable goods) - retailers are compensated for that additional cost and risk by selling at a higher per unit price than they have bought wholesale. With some form of additional mark-up over their strict wholesale to retail costs (which would include transport, of course, and storage).

I found this thread where a number of posters said their bills had gone down since having a meter. Of course you did. When meters are voluntary people choose to have them where they think their usage is below 'average' - perhaps a couple living in a 5 bedroomed house with a high rateable value. It is the compulsory nature which means that usage charges (for those who wouldn't have chosen to have a meter installed, because they believe their usage may be higher than average - for instance a large, young family living in a small property - or even average - why risk it for no gain?) may actually rise, and rise for quite a few. Simple cognitive dissonance would mean that those who chose a meter, and then found their water bills had increased would tend not to put themselves forward as they would appear to have been foolish.

Low income consumers are among the smallest consumers of water - they don't have huge lawns to water But they often do have large-ish families, often with young children, high domestic consumers of water. If you really think, around here, that the wealthy are marked by having 'huge lawns' I suspect you are sadly mistaken. The huge lawns around here are in the many public parks - which also have to pay for the water they use. And quite clearly the enforcement of usage meters - when the 'shortfall' could be met by actually mending leaks - is all about excusing Thames Water from effective repair. Thames Water's performance locally has been miserable - with regular failures to repair leaks effectively, and some times at all. It is the fact (and it is a fact) that leaks constantly occur in the same places - outside the Horniman for instance - even when the road has been shut for long periods to 'replace' the water mains running there - which suggests that Thames Water is wholly incompetent, either with its own direct labour or though its contractors. This meter introduction is displacement activity - the labour and costs would be far better directed at effectively improving the delivery infrastructure - this has 'shifting the deck chairs on the Titanic' written all over it. Meters are a charging mechanism, pure and simple - and focusing on installing a new charging mechanism (and one hugely more expensive than the automatic rateable value based charging, which has virtually no cost attached other than sending out an annual bill) is a very poor use of our money. If you believe this is being done for any better reason than it benefits Thames Water and its owners then I'm afraid you are startlingly na?ve. That's not the way big companies work, especially ones with 'leveraged' ownership. Ofwat is a weak regulator (most, other than Ofcom, are). They see their job as avoiding controversy and not upsetting their main 'customers'. The water companies. Clearly HMG is a customer too, but the water companies have them over a barrel - voters will punish a government if the water stops flowing, and that's something the water companies can 'threaten' if they don't get their way. That's the threat Thames Water has already successfully exercised in getting their universal usage charging enforced in their delivery area. 'If you don't do this, then we'll run out of water, and then what will the electorate say?' No Government (or regulator) would dare to say - 'if you run out of water because you can't, or won't, mend your pipes (which is the position now) then we will confiscate your water asset without compensation and bring it back into public ownership'.

I think there was a case, or suspected case, a little while back where poison put down for rats was implicated, although I think traps are used now around the pond in the Rye. Dog digestions are generally stronger than peoples, so food which was 'off' worries them less than it would us. If the vet has checked for e.g. blockages (which could put an animal off its food) I would hope that time would be a healer here.

Thames Water plan to use price rationing (which will hit the poorest hardest, and will actually benefit the company by increasing revenues) to relieve them from the expense of mending their own leaky pipes. Granted that it is a difficult job, but the fact that they are, right now, losing more water than they will require to provide additionally by 2100 is an absolute disgrace. They have been given a get out of jail free card almost in perpetuity - with the ability to blame the customer for the effects of their own lack of diligence. Their shareholders will be delighted. And no doubt pillage the utility for years to come. If HMG required them to mend even 50% of the leaks before they were allowed to pay another dividend (or to forbid their equity holders to load the company with debt to their own benefit) things would be different, perhaps. But this is a robbers charter.

there is no Russian or North Korean ownership of UK water infrastructure It would be a very strange hacker that decided to hack something they owned. At the moment our 'smart' systems are very open to cyber attack - the neatest of which is to switch-off supply to individual addresses, which the smart systems do support (I have contacts in the power industry who confirm this). Hospitals, schools, energy suppliers and private companies have all been attacked by ransomware, most attackers being based in e.g. North Korea and Russia, although many of the Russian ones are probably simply criminal gangs and not state agents. Almost certainly these would need to be individually switched back on again, particularly if the underlying code was taken over by ransomware. Smart meters are communicating IT, based in your premises and impacting your supply, over which you have no control - you cannot password these wifi hubs which belong, and are fully in the control of, your supplier - or whoever is now controlling your supplier.

This from the article above This will hopefully go some way to dealing with a predicted water shortage of around 387 million litres of water a day in the London area by 2045, which is expected to get worse with time increasing to 688 million litres of water a day by 2100 (a quarter of the water Thames Water currently supply!). The choice is either to ship a lot of water to London from the north at great expense (think huge pipelines, reservoirs and pumping stations), or to push out meters to get us to use it more efficiently. And it seems we all use less water when we?re billed for it by the cubic metre (Thames Water reckon water use goes down by twelve percent). That said, there is another thing Thames Water can do: reduce the number of leaks in their ageing water network! In February this year they lost a staggering 732 million litres of water every day to leaks (which is rather more than the total predicted daily water shortfall in 2100). It?s a big and difficult job: in the same month they repaired 4,568 leaks, but realistically a lot of London?s pipework apart from the really major water mains is a creaking mess of lead and ancient cast iron and needs a major upgrade, and Thames Water have consistently missed their leak reduction targets. Note that there is more leaking daily from their pipes now than they anticipate they will need by 2100!

And avoid a smart energy meter unless you want a bill that may charge you a different rate up to 48 times a day. There is no option, according to the bumf. I suspect Thames Water are using this is one way of reducing the "costs" of a man coming twice a year to read the water meter in the pavement Most people have NO water meter - they are charged based on their rateable value only. So no cost (or indeed accuracy) savings here - for most households there is no meter to read. I would add that if they plan to be able to turn-off the water remotely - as they can with smart gas and electricity meters, then you may shortly expect a friendly North Korean or Russian to do precisely that - either to hold Thames water to ransom (but I bet their foreign owners won't pay) or as an act of aggression. And it will be bottled water all round then, as there won't be the man power to manually override the electronic off switch.

At least, though, this move is proof it wants to reduce wastage. No, it's proof it wants access to uncapped and open ended charging. All the research suggests that providing access to detailed usage information (for power or water) makes an alteration in year 1 or so to usage, but this soon changes and reverts back to normal habits. The reason why our area is perceived to be at water risk is substantially down to Thames Water's inability to manage its supply well (i.e. keep it in the pipes). And it is by no means clear that the impact of climate change on the UK will necessarily be to reduce the amounts of water falling on our islands. This may actually increase. In which case the issue may well be about run-off and not water meters. The water is better conserved if the rain gets to water tables and aquifers for storage, rather than not. Not using impermeable stone or concrete in drives and back gardens (in London) may have a far greater impact (and gravel and permeable linings are far cheaper than stone, at least). And that's nothing to do with Thames Water or lining their coffers.

I have just received a letter/ pack from Thames Water saying that they now have a statutory right to force all households (presumably in London) to have smart water meters - whether they want one or not. Whilst I have nothing against actions which will help conserve water, it is a bit rich that the largest single waster of water locally - Thames Water with its horrendous history of leaks - should now be able to enforce what will almost certainly be higher charges to line the pockets of their owners at the expense of London householders. The old water rates had some oversight, but these charges, which will be based on Thames' interpretation of usage, will be open ended and uncapped (and will be unilaterally imposed within 12 months of the meters being fitted). Of course some people will reduce their usage, by washing less (them and their clothes) or other economies - but this sort of open ended-pillage (particularly when other prices are soaring as well) - and by a company which is notoriously wasteful and inefficient (how many times locally do they shut roads to 'repair' exactly the same stretches of pipe?) does seem unacceptable, at least to me it does. Water rates were one of the few charges which were predictable - you knew at the beginning of each fiscal what the monthly pain would be - but now we have a foreign owned monopoly (it is owned by Kemble Water Holdings Ltd, a consortium formed in late 2006 and formerly owned by Australian-based Macquarie Group's European Infrastructure Funds specifically for the purpose of purchasing Thames Water) able to charge effectively what it wants. There is nothing, of course, that we can do about this - but did this come as much as a surprise to other ED-ers as it did to me, or have I just been asleep whilst it happened around me?

I'm not sure if the "old chestnut" comment referred to the Honor Oak Park suggestion. I've never seen it on EDF before. It's been a long-standing suggestion that that 68 running to Honor Oak Park would make it a much more useful route - linking the Overground (Orange line) into the bus services back into town. However I don't think it's practical, unless there was a significant change to the road configuration around the station as there is no area where it could safely turn round (as it just can into and through Wood Vale) to resume its journey back to Kings Cross. By the time you could find a turning circle you've probably added 20 minutes to its journey time (min) which probably isn't acceptable.

How strange that someone who has apparently never before been on the forum should fortuitously join it at the moment when there was a posting about a dog fight in which his/ her dog was apparently involved. What are the chances of that?

The use of the stretcher parts for railings after the WWII closed was (in part) a recompense to the community for the old cast iron railings that had been removed across the country as scrap metal for war use. In fact they were never properly utilised (rather like the aluminium saucepans taken for aircraft manufacture). There were of course lots of stretchers in major cities used for civilian casualties during bomb-raids - so by the war's end far more than were needed for normal civilian needs. Their re-use was an elegant solution to using surplus material without having costs of remanufacture into something else. Late 1940s and 50s repurposing/ upcycling, in a way.

You could overlay traffic / congestion increases and decreases with data from a consumer bucketing tool like Experian or Mosaic, which goes into quite granular detail on occupant's home ownership status, job security etc etc. With such a small population to be addressed there are real issues of Data Protection here (or there maybe). In addition, until the census figures are published and absorbed into e.g. the Mosaic Database the analysis will be based on updates and assumptions 'read into' 10 year old data. But you are absolutely right that analysis by economic power, life stage, family size and other standard demographics may shed light on the backgrounds and status of perceived 'winners and losers' - to build into an understanding of 'fairness' (but itself a very subjective issue). Do the needs of a family with small children 'trump' a household of the old and clinically vulnerable, for instance?

The data collected are partial, inconsistent and not fully reported. It is impossible to draw conclusions from them which would be in any way credible. They will support almost any argument, because they actually support none. I have already adumbrated on the difference between correlation and causation, but the figures available will hardly support even statistical correlation - and certainly not the type of multi-variate analysis from which suggestions of causation might be inferred. This has all the merits (and accuracy) of medieval debate about the numbers of angels that might dance on the head of a pin. What we cannot now do is go back in time to measure accurately a 'before' state which might be consistently interpreted with any 'after' state. That boat has left. The only figures which might now support (or deny) the policy would be a properly conducted poll or survey of those impacted (rather than those with a political axe to bear, including but not exclusively 'interest groups' of people not in SE22). We had a stab at one of those, of course, but the 'results' didn't match Tooley St's prejudices, so were ignored. That survey would not of course tell us anything about whether the nominal intentions of the LTNs were, or were not, met, but rather give us a (small p) 'political' view of the local impact. Sadly the rather larger poll about to be conducted in May covers a much larger range of issues (quite properly) and for which the P in political will definitely be a large one!