Penguin68

I suspect (horribly) that it was the terrible event that triggered this - as a case of bullying/ mistaken 'humour' (I use that word wrongly). 'Women are scared now, I'll do a scary thing, won't that be funny?' (Not). I'm sure his mates laughed like drains.

Numbers of shops, particularly small shops, seem to have installed Perspex/ equivalent screens behind which their servers can be happily mask free. Corner shops have few staff and work long hours, so being able to be mask free behind a screen is probably a good (and probably a safe) thing. Even without contra-indicating health or mental health reasons long sessions of mask wearing can be very difficult. If you are unhappy about any outlet's Covid-19 safety (from staff or other customers) then don't use it.

Normally buildings insurance (non leasehold) is based on the rebuild cost (not the market value) of the property - although you may find that leaseholder buildings insurance doesn't cover quite what owner insurance does. Clearly the cost of rebuilding flats is more than the cost of rebuilding an equivalent single house (more bathrooms and kitchens normally).

and they play the Covid card In my experience, throughout Covid - the only missed collection we had was weather related. But the crews have been changed and are changing as individuals have to isolate or may be shielding - remember these guys can't stay at home or work from home - they are very much front-line key workers. I can't speak for those employed by the Council as liaison with Veolia. These probably are working from home and may find this more difficult logistically. then your complaint is ignored. Its been that way for years. Again, in my experience, pre-Covid there was response to reports of missed collections - and these were generally corrected within 48 hours. But we were lucky, it didn't happen often.

I wonder if they will ever open the surgery again - they seem very happy with patients queuing (and waiting until called) in the rain and wind and shouting their symptoms to passers by. It's the way they triple lock the door between patients (or they did the last time I had to call for a form) and peer out through the smallest slit in the door when forced to deal with patients which makes one feel so special and cared for. Like Typhoid Mary. Or perhaps things have improved?

You can't delete posts, only admin can. You can always report your own post to admin as 'in the wrong section' to bring it to his attention. The way you have edited it is helpful. Admin cleans out these wrongly posted messages when there's time.

Have a Southwark wide consultation to consider pedestrianisation taking into account equality measures. Just DO IT PROPERLY! NO - Absolutely don't! The North of Southwark (flat, well served by public transport, far fewer cars owned or needed) is very different from the South (the old Borough of Camberwell) - there are no 'one-size fits all' solutions. By all means have a consultation in hilly, poorly served Camberwell - and find solutions that make sense for us. The North of the Borough (the original Southwark) has different problems, and will need different solutions, to us. But if our problems are only seen through the prism of Tooley St. we will have nothing that suits.

That is odd - everyone I knew who had a TJ jab had their second appointment booked at the time of the first jab (indeed, before the first jab was given, after the data collection part) - when I was there (Oxford AZ) 11 weeks to the day after. I am also at FHR Surgery. The stewards at TJ were being very good about ensuring the process was followed. If you have a named GP at FHR why not write to them, saying where and when your vaccination was, and that you haven't got a second one booked? If you can't get through the Cerberuses on the switchboard.

It's all a matter of trust, isn't it? Do you trust Southwark to actually treat these as an experiment, to be properly and openly studied and assessed - or do you believe they are using the Government order as a back-door to implementing (with no real opportunity for open review and change) changes which they had previously proposed, and which had been opposed by locals when they had that opportunity. Do you believe this is actually about Healthy Streets - in the light of Covid-19 and NOx2 pollution etc. - or do you believe this is part of Southwark's avowed and open policy to drive out car usage in their borough (not our borough, as it happens, but Tooley St's to do with as they wish)? Do you believe that the councillors will take an open view of how they assess these schemes, or do you believe they will intentionally limit the people polled in order to 'prove' (and I use that word quite wrongly) their original hypothesis? Do you believe they will take every opportunity to extend the schemes both in scale and in terms of timescale (as they have already done elsewhere) with the hope that it moves from 'trial' to fait accompli without objections (other than vapid ones on fora such as these) to be made? Do you trust your (sic) Southwark Councillors? Outwith any possible merits of some or part of these schemes, I have absolutely no trust that Southwark will do anything other than ride rough shod over the views of those effected - as is and has been their wont.

If you want to be morally pure you need to give up gas central heating, electricity, internet, mobile phones and go live in a cave and eat berries. You've set your irony filter too high. I was making fun of them, not endorsing their views.

Penguin68 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > was a Lib Dem and therefore not running Southwark > > There was a time when we were not a one party > state, and indeed when Lib Dems had influence and > power. Not since 2010 And your point is? I've lived here for over 30 years, and for only a third of that time has there been a one party state. Before that there was effective opposition (sort-of) and indeed collaborative working. And council proposals were properly debated locally and local views won out over central proposals, when clearly stated. At least sometimes. And local councillors thought they owed something to their constituents, and not just to the party machines (whichever party that was).

The biggest problem is that Southwark's plans make no allowance for the fact that the borough is not uniform. The North is well served by public transport (some parts are very well served) with tubes and buses that traverse the compass. It is also flat, which makes cycling far easier for the less fit. The South, where we are, is very hilly and poorly served by public transport. Its car ownership is much higher, but then it mimics that of Bromley - similar in nature. Things here are further apart - so 'walk it or cycle it' is a less acceptable mantra, particularly for the more elderly and infirm (or indeed those with a handful of toddlers to cope with). We are only 'inner London' because of a stitch-up which meant that the old Borough of Camberwell was subsumed by Southwark, which carries that title and topology. So a single policy (that which looks sensible if you are sitting in Tooley St surrounded by good public transport and no hills) looks less sensible here. And it doesn't help that the streets which you can readily cut-off from the real world are those where the (most) wealthy live, and the streets onto which the traffic is diverted are where the state schools and the less wealthy are. And (despite the current low levels of traffic associated with continuing lock-down) when the economy and society releases there are going to be bad levels of traffic in those streets - which will get worse over time.

We motorists are really nothing but cash cows to them I think you'll find that's polluting, poisonous, despicable cash cows who must be driven (sic) out of the borough

I think different centres had different policies - some booked the second at the time of the first, some booked both together, but others chose to contact their first vaccine patients when it was time for the second. If you were vaccinated in a hospital I think that last policy was more common.

This is a very difficult time - with different sets of needs, each, taken singly, very compelling. Social isolation and mental health deterioration as a function of that are clearly dreadful, but so are (a) the actual effects of Covid-19 and (b) fears about catching Covid-19 - which also impacts mental health. The police are caught between a rock and a hard place - intervening seems heavy handed, but not intervening causes those fearful and worried huge distress and even anger. Ideally there would be places, fully marked out with social distancing limits, where groups could come together, in the open, to exercise communally and safely - but these don't exist, and aren't anyway licenced by the current government rules (and if they were would favour those living in leafy suburbs with 'free' parkland over those in crowded inner cities, which many would not see as 'fair' - I'm not sure I would!). So I don't think there is a 'reasonable' course here which would satisfy all. What the police are reported as doing wasn't as heavy handed as it might have been - they could have legally fined participants (or at least the organiser) rather than asking them to move along - indeed it appears to have been well judged, given the legislation they are bound to abide by and administer. Of course most reading this will have felt your pain - but then we've also felt the pain of those writing to complain about the actions of parents with children at a playground - and certainly children are really suffering from isolation at a time when they are meant to be building up social skills - which at least the OP will have had the opportunity to do many years ago.

was a Lib Dem and therefore not running Southwark There was a time when we were not a one party state, and indeed when Lib Dems had influence and power.

it's difficult to see how the result of a statutory consultation on a particular CPZ would come out other than in favour of the CPZ unless there were some very specific objections that couldn't be ignored? You're probably right, but it says all we need to know about this council that the wants or needs of their constituents are irrelevant to their plans. We only get one go at democracy, on one day every 3 years (or more if they can postpone the polls). Maybe the next time we get the chance we shouldn't blow it on knee jerk 'we are all left wing here' responses. When socialism used to have some relationship to democracy and the will of the people. Long past in Southwark, I fear.

About twenty odd saplings in plastic, protective tubes have been planted on the lower slopes of Dawson's Hill. Interesting to know the purpose of the planting - maybe to stabilize that slope - or maybe the trees are decorative - more flowering cherry trees would be good - we've had a great show in ED recently. Or maybe productive and they're real fruit trees, not ornamental?

GDPR prevents aany information being published or just the names? GDPR only prevents publication when such publication is not included as an authorised use. If (as I believe should have happened) applications were sought with the proviso that details other than bank account details may be published then that would have been fine. I believe that applying for public funding is a public act, and the details of applications (who is applying) should be made available to the public - other, perhaps, than details of bank accounts. Otherwise relatives and spouses of councillors could apply for funding and get it and no one would be the wiser. Too many people are now hiding under the cloak of GDPR in order to keep what should be public, private. That way (alleged) SNP style corruption lies. To clarify - GDPR does not give blanket secrecy to individual names (personal data) - if and unless such a purpose was stated when the data was collected. What people do have is the right to get access to personal data held and to get something corrected, if in error. Hence, unless you tick the right box, your personal details, as captured in the Electoral Register, are made available from the electoral register. If applications for funding clearly stated that applicants names/ and or applicant organisation names would be made available, then making them available is in breach of nothing.

There has been some suggestion that side effects are more marked if the person being vaccinated has had Covid-19. (And, as a corollary, for those that have had a second vaccine that their side effects have been worse than when they had the first). Perhaps those who have had significant side effects (worse say than a partner) could include with their feedback whether they have had, or suspect they've had, Covid already. My partner and I (both vaccinated together, neither, we think, have had Covid-19, or at least not symptomatically) had limited (12-15 hours) 'feeling rough' before returning to normal.

I suspect that it is commercial interests that are driving this proposed festival. There is nothing, per se wrong with commercial interests, IMHO, but if it is I would be worried that they are getting council funding on top of that. Indeed that would be quite improper. A council funded event which does then include commercial partners to provide additional funding (by e.g. paying for food concessions) is a different issue, but these should not be 'behind' such an event.

I see public transport as being pretty good (a relative term) you choose to see it as not pretty good. I assume you have no occasion to travel East: West through/ out of ED? Travel into and out of the City is fine (North: South) - and this described the bulk of traffic pre-lockdown and WFH (although there was still quite a reasonable flow East West as people who lived south of the river in South East, South and South West London tried to communicate). The nature of the road closures has been to further restrict East West flow - so channelling traffic into the few roads left that feed into the South Circular - the only East West route left open. Hence the traffic nightmares in rush hour now in Underhill (when we are not in an obligatory lock-down). So we have little public transport East West of any use (a 12 minute car journey for me to see friends in Ladywell takes 90 minutes by the only circuitous hopper bus that reaches that destination - and that's not atypical). Oh, and with the hills between them and me, and my age and infirmity, cycling isn't an option.

Possibly they are pro vaccine, if they are, because they are not complete idiots. Which would not stop them favouring particular manufacturers. If they do as I haven't read their views. Just commentating on their credentials.

Medscape is a commercial publisher. It is owned by WebMD - Wiki notes these criticisms of this publisher The New York Times Writing in The New York Times Magazine in 2011, Virginia Heffernan criticized WebMD for biasing readers toward drugs that are sold by the site's pharmaceutical sponsors, even when they are unnecessary. She wrote that WebMD "has become permeated with pseudo-medicine and subtle misinformation." Vox Media Julia Belluz of Vox criticized WebMD for encouraging hypochondria and for promoting treatments for which evidence of safety and effectiveness is weak or non-existent, such as green coffee supplements for weight loss, vagus nerve stimulation for depression, and fish-oil/omega-3 supplements for high cholesterol. I cannot confirm these criticisms, nor say they relate also to Medscape - but in reading Medscape you may wish to note its stable companion. The source is commercial, it is neither academic nor specifically medical (i.e. not from those involved in medical research or provision of medical services) save as a commercial publisher of information targeted at medics.

Funerals are not cheap, and I wouldn't tip anyone there, but I would write a letter of thanks and I would post in whatever relevant social media (I'm sure there are sites for funeral Directors, otherwise Google at least) an appreciation of what they've done (which is more likely to bring them in business and value than a tip). You could ask them where they would appreciate a positive review. Sometimes there are functionaries at a crematorium - if they've organised things for you out of standard - whom you might tip, however. You wouldn't tip a solicitor. Or an accountant. Or a travel agent.