Penguin68

American Diners are huge manic places with waiters flying around the place I don't think this is necessarily so - American Diners are most marked by (a) having counter service with long counters and table service (b) opening at breakfast (served American style) and continuing to serve throughout the day into the evening © serving both full meals and snacks (such as coffee and pie). Look at the diners in e.g. Pulp Fiction or Goodfellas, (without the gunfire!) - or Twin Peaks - or almost any American film - no manic waiters rushing around (although there is waitress service) - you are I think confusing the large scale burger bars and taco joints like Planet Hollywood with the traditional Edward Hopper diner https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nighthawks_(painting)#/media/File:Nighthawks_by_Edward_Hopper_1942.jpg

I was once warned (by a glazier) that burglars broke windows so that when they were replaced they could return and remove the pane simply whilst the putty was still malleable. I don't know whether that was true and still is, but you might want to be cautious if the broken window could give access to your house without glass in it. Equally it might have been broken by a stone flying up from a wheel accidently, if it is close to a road where traffic might pass at a little speed.

This thread is all about cognitive dissonance - when we read the doomsayers and moaners on other threads (about violence, and thefts and road closures and favourite shops and eateries and hairdressers closing etc.) we look to this thread to confirm our choice of living here - through recording 'famous' people who seem to have made the same choice, thus validating our own. It's basically harmless and may even be therapeutic!

and each household requires a separate mains water supply I had understood (happy to stand corrected) that this was for sewers and drains - but of course the consequences of increased densities still apply. Additionally more rainfall leads to more run-off and demands on drains.

That won't help if it's mains powered.

If you don't have animals (or a floating, silvered helium balloon - it happened to me!) setting the alarm off, then it's most likely a faulty sensor - and/ or an infra red one with a cobweb over it. The infra red sensors can last as few as 5 years, and do need to be kept clean of cobwebs. Also the back-up batteries (in case of mains failure) only now have a 3-4 year life, and will need replacing. It's possible that's what triggering the alarm to sound. I have found Martin Curry of Security Masters (independent in Herne Hill - 07947 321 132) very good and helpful. He will at least be able to isolate the alarm to stop it going off.

Unless it is a rare and expensive breed small dogs are frequently stolen for either ransome or for training fighting dogs. The details being sought are not really relevant in these cases. It may just be genuine interest. Talking about your dog or the weather are acceptable topics for starting conversations. Some people just want to be friendly, something Londoners are uneasy about.

I suspect it may just be someone who is lonely, and may possibly (not by any means necessarily) have some mental health problems. Everything he asked, someone could have asked sitting next to you in a pub (even 'if there were any jobs about') - his closing 'thank you' may well have been genuine. It may have been strange, and even unsettling in solipsistic London, but may very well not actually have been in any way threatening.

Hopefully the air ambulance wasnt diverted from an actual accident where a decent hard working person needed help, whilst these kids played lets pretend to be a gangster and stab each other on our front doorstep. Unless you know a great deal more about this incident than you are revealing, the culpability of the victims of these knife crimes towards their own injuries is mere conjecture on your part. As would be the level of personal responsibility for anyone involved in an accident and needing the air ambulance. As would be the 'merit' - in terms of being hard working, of these victims. The existence of county lines exploiting children suggests that children are not 'playing' at being gangsters but are (sometimes) deeply involved, not necessarily voluntarily, in 'gang' criminality.

But wasn't that what was happening at that place near Tandoori Nights? Platform something or other? A pop-up but not a 'rolling pop-up' I thought. Happy to be proved wrong. And I think it would have been more 'waiting for a full-time tenant' and not an intentional business plan for change.

Too many good eateries last a few months and then the custom falls off and they close. Ideal would be to find an entrepreneur willing to invest in a good quality kitchen and then find restaurateurs willing to run say, 3 months pop-ups - changing over regularly. For them, it would be a chance to try out a formula - for us a new cuisine every quarter that we could all fill and then not worry about returning too frequently 'to keep it going'. LL palates seem to get quickly jaded - maybe this would be a way round that. And having a regularly changing venue (but in a good and intentional way) would probably be good for the Lane as well. Sensible scheduling and planning could have a pie-shop style outlet in winter months, something more salad-y and light for the summer. Just wishful thinking of course, but no more so than previous posts perhaps?

what, they changed their toddler's nappies on their own? They didn't try and get the waiting staff to do it for them? It's the location, not the fact - but you knew that, didn't you?

Apparently a large number of people (customers) expressed opinions against the sale of fireworks last year - I also expect that the costs associated with selling fireworks (sales area, dedicated staff, security) may well have outweighed the revenue per square foot calculations - where such low net return items (if they are) are given selling space it is normally because they boost foot-fall - my guess would be that customers buying fireworks in Sainsbury's were customers anyway - the offer did not bring them in specially. And clearly it gives them some good publicity in these XR days!

I would like to see a shop or eatery which has been well researched (as regards local needs) and which is economically sustainable - which probably means with a flexible approach to changing customer needs. It needs (based on the high rents and rates being charged) to either sell high ticket or (and?) high volume items. It will need to understand the constraints of small footprint outlets and to cope with increasing parking restrictions which will make it reliant either mainly on (very) local trade, or on mainly bus access. The fact that restaurants seem to be doing better than traditional shops may reflect the area's greater accessibility by car out of normal shopping hours.

As fishbiscuits notes - this seems to be about wanting to import outlets which are anyway just round the corner, a bus ride or a cheap uber away. Our local community really is slightly larger than just LL. If you like these places (and I do like many close but not on my doorstep) just go to them. And I'm not sure LL is really right for late night opening night clubs, with all that they bring with them. [Nor are the outlet footprints really large enough]. Purely selfishly I'd like to see a wider range of food - a good Vietnamese, a modern Chinese (not just cantonese cuisine), a South Indian (i.e. Keralan etc.) - but I'm not sure we have the customer base to support even one of these. Oh, and Farmer's already offers good value domestic consumables - maybe not pound store cheap, but very competitive and with a very wide range.

In the 1990s, a few doors up from Binester Toys. Later the site split and one half dealt in mobiles. It then just sold sports shoes but earlier had sold a much wider range of sports equipment.

I would like to see a sports shop, not a JD Sports, but a shop selling cricket bats, pads, balls, hockey sticks, sports trainers, slips, tennis rackets, balls and the like. We did have one, once; first it halved in size, then closed - suggesting that we can't offer the market for one.

If it goes like the ED one, what you collectively say you want, and what the powers that be in their infinite wisdom will give you will have little overlap. Unless, collectively, you want CPZs imposed on every street in the survey. 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. If so, your prayers will be answered.

That's a pity as police should use reports such as this to built up a picture of what is happening I wholly agree. This sort of crime (cyber crime and fraud) are reported to a unit in the City of London Police, who are meant to analyse them and them send them out to local forces - but of course these have virtually no fraud or cyber crime experts on them. Banks avoid response where they can and ty to place blame on their own customers to avoid liability. Famously they use 'data protection' to avoid giving details of the accounts to which funds have been siphoned. Apparently there is so much of this that police resources are overwhelmed, to the extent that they no longer really bother. Elsewhere on this (or another) thread I have recounted the lack of police follow-up when provided with photos and car details of burglars in an incident local to me. Not enough was stolen for them to bother, as far as I can judge. If you kick someone's door in and then fail to make a suitable haul, well, we're so sorry and better luck next time, eh lads?

I don't think they'd tell you this just as if you've had money fraudulently taken from your bank account they won't tell you much about what happened. Current evidence is that nothing will have happened - there has been a lot of coverage recently to suggest that there is virtually no follow-up in these sort of cases. Most reports of such crimes are not even seen by actual police officers, but are 'checked' (and I use that word quite wrongly) by computer algorithms and occasionally civilian employees.

It could be argued (and I would) that an outlet in a public park should be obliged to support purchasers without discrimination - we now lived in a mixed economy where cash and cards are both generally accepted and should be accepted here. An outlet on the high street may choose only one exchange medium (many, because of bank and merchant issuer charges do not choose to offer credit, or even debit card facilities) - but I think that an outlet in a public park offering refreshment should be obliged by their council landlord to accept cash transactions. Not to do so, as I and others have pointed out, is to discriminate against legitimate park users.

Although under 18s can now have debit cards - considering how many are mugged for e.g. phones I wouldn't want to risk a child having a card on them unaccompanied, which means that they will be restricted from buying stuff which, as a child myself (I can just remember that far back) I used to do - ice creams, pop and sweets. Independently buying small value items is sort-of part of what growing up's about. This is exactly the sort of outlet where that should be 'safe'.

This isn't a heavy cost for cafes or shops that decide to use one. Moving to cashless is in the bank' best interests, they don't have to handle cash (which has costs) and accounting is electronic. Banks should be offering machines virtually for free, considering the operational value to them of so doing, and particularly where debit or cash cards (credit risk-free) are concerned. Small enterprises run on small margins (often) - anything eating into that margin surely is unwelcome. However, cash handling has operational costs (and risks) for small enterprises, hence their many moving into cashless only (but some also offer cash only transactions - presumably each outlet is making its best estimate of cost efficiency).

When I lived in Battersea an 'inner' front door in a purpose-built block of flats (as strong as an outer front door, and protected by e.g. Banham locks) was entered by using an electric saw to cut away the door leaving the locks etc. intact, but redundant. When thieves want to get in, little will stop them. The door was out of sight of passers by, which made it the more vulnerable. In ED thieves kicked in an outer front door near me - I photographed the robbers (and gave the pictures to the police) - and another neighbour took down their car number but, since little of value was actually taken, they (the police) weren't really bothered to make any arrests, although I believe they did identify the suspects (and had my photographic evidence and another witness statement). The only real purpose of reporting non-violent (crimes against property) crime now is to get a crime number which aids insurance claims.

Thank you, Renata, that's really useful as an aide-memoire. Am I right in thinking that it is a move between the classes (A-D) which constitutes 'change of use' and not within any one class?