Penguin68

Bumped

Yes!!! Helium is rare On the Earth only - helium is the second most abundant element in the universe (second to hydrogen) and accounts for 25% of the atoms in the universe (although dark matter accounts for 85% of the matter in the universe, the other 15% being all known elements - so helium is 25% of that 15% of matter).

The Mary Seacole Centre - it is on the site of the old Dulwich Maternity Hospital and Mary Seacole is credited with good quality maternity medical care. In Jamaica in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, neonatal deaths were more than a quarter of total births, at a time when British-Jamaican planter Thomas Thistlewood wrote about European doctors employing questionable practices such as mercury pills and the bleeding of the patient. However, Seacole, using traditional West African herbal remedies and hygienic practices, boasted that she never lost a mother or her child. Her links to Southwark, it has to be said, are tenuous, but not to London itself and there is a statue to her outside St Thomas'.

I suppose Healthy McHealth Face is off the agenda?

I've posted a situation update in the related (and currently adjacent) thread.

My Veolia front line source has now told me:- 1. A different company (from Veolia, who know the area and routes of course, and we couldn't be doing with that) will be collecting old brown bins from those not paying for garden waste disposal and at the same time issuing any new bins ordered. This won't be happening (I'm guessing) until they have given households time to respond (or not) to the hangers now being placed on unstickered bins reminding them of the intention to charge for/ or remove old-style large brown bins. So probably still a few weeks (i.e. into July) before the new kerb-side caddies will be issued for those wanting them (which I assume will be everybody not now having one - as they will be the only collecting point in future for kitchen waste). 2. All organic waste is still (and will still) be collected together by Veolia - i.e. no separation of garden and kitchen waste will be made at the point of collection. Apparently lorries just carrying food waste come from the West End already and are added to the general organic waste that Veolia holds. This may change over time, but advice from Southwark that they 'can't' be combined now is, well, rubbish. I am not really expecting this to settle down until the autumn. Other than sheer bloody-mindedness there is no reason why those paying for garden waste collection shouldn't have brown bagged waste collected at the same time as the garden waste in the brown bins. But making them pay for bown bags (on top of their fee for using the bin) and then making them arrange special collections will be aimed just to add to the buggaration effect of the council - and encourage dumping. And of course ramp up the costs of the 'cash-starved' council as they send out what will be unnecessary brown bag pick-ups from those already being passed by lorries collecting garden rubbish. In fact, if the Veolia lorries continued to collect, once a week, garden waste in brown bins (which have been paid for) and garden waste in brown paper bags (bought from the council) they would be saving logistic and transport costs and simplifying life for everyone, whilst still getting their new revenue stream. But that would be sensible and nice and not what we have come to expect from these (please add your own descriptors and epithets here) elected and appointed council officials.

If I put it in the Brown bin it will be contaminated. Ive been using this bin for food waste since day one. I am now concerned that New Large bins are to be distributed as well as food waste bins and I should of waited for that to arrive and put my sticker on the new bin. See my thread on trusting the Council. Although the government has advised separating food and garden waste (because they can be treated differently, with food waste digested anaerobically producing methane for heating, and garden waste composted) - (it also advised not charging for garden waste collection, but there you go) - Veolia will still collect all organic waste (for the moment) in the same bin lorries. So your advice from Southwark was somewhat premature - at some time they will be separately treated, but not yet. The Southwark separation using two bins is to get us in the mood for all this (well it can't be anything else, apart from creating a garden waste collection off-the-rates revenue stream, as Veolia don't separate in their collection lorries yet).

If you don't protect your bin it will simply get very nasty, unless you wash it out regularly. With a bag all the waste will go. But you could wrap it in newspaper to protect the bin, according to my Veolia source.

mysteriously ??? No mystery, I would have thought!

Over time the two waste collections will be separated, at least that's what the government wants. I don't think the Veolia contract now allows for that. So, no point, save as a revenue earner for Southwark now that it can charge for garden waste separately - even though the same government paper says that should be collected without additional charge.

In reading the report - and I've no reason to doubt the accuracy of the figures - the Horniman was most recently re-designed to meet the needs of 250k visitors and is handling now close to 1 million. Clearly this cannot continue long-term without unnecessary levels of location stress. The grass-roofed building is also close to or at the end of its design-life. Many of the comments in the report are not unreasonable - the 'front' entrance isn't well flagged for those who don't know it. I personally like the slightly fusty atmosphere of the natural History exhibits - but I recognise that these are outdated in terms of modern museum curation. The former 'pond' area is woefully under-utilised. Of course any work will cause disruption - at least short term - and I am sure some changes will make some people unhappy (I was sad when the little garden and stream was lost running up to the main building in the last re-furb) - but I do strongly advise against resisting change just because it is change - or resenting the truth that more people, drawn from a wider demographic, are using the Horniman. It was designed for the people of London to be used, and if the people, and their needs, change, so should the Horniman. It is now nothing like the museum my late mother - born 100 years ago - used to visit - she loved it in her day, my grown-up children loved a different it when they were young and I am sure my grandchildren will enjoy a new version. And they wouldn't have enjoyed (so much) the versions my mother, I and my children all enjoyed.

do we continue to put food waste in with the garden waste until new bin arrives? Yes, according to the Veolia guy I talk to and (I think) the Southwark web site. They are legally obliged to collect food waste and (until they provide alternative bins) their policy is to combine food and garden waste in the same brown bin. Eventually (because the most effective disposal of food and garden waste is different) they will collect these separately, but, at the moment, I believe, even when we separate them in different bins they will be collected into the same lorries!

Maybe it is if it's an identity being stolen.

but the council have removed it!!? Are you sure - could it have been a 'neighbour' wanting a brown bin for his/ her sticker?

Which will make the printed property address particularly visible...

Do we keep the brown bins if we aren't paying for a subscription? Seems a strange system They (Southwark) are meant to collect unstickered bins (presumably for re-issue for those who want one and don't have one) - of course they should be swapping them out for the kerb-side food waste caddies (with about 3-4 times the capacity of the kitchen caddies) for those who don't have them, and issuing additional kerb-side food waste caddies for those keeping their large brown bins for garden waste. I suspect those logistics may defeat them. At the moment we all continue to put all our organic waste in the one brown bin we may have, of whatever size. At some (by no means clear) stage we must not mix food and garden waste.

Mine has arrived as well. My Veolia source (great binman) tells me that only 5000 of 25000 households have requested garden waste collection, mainly in the South of the Borough. (I.E. Borough of Camberwell as was). But then, that's where the larger private gardens are.

SE22

This, surely, is also about cognitive dissonance. By saying famous people (people we know/ have heard of) live around us we are trying to confirm our decision to live or stay here. If famous people shop where we shop then surely we must have taken the right location decisions? We gain, additionally, by osmosis, that their fame and fashionability will somehow rub off on us. I don't really think this is either creepy or in any way stalking. We have stumbled upon them in a public place, not searched for them in private ones.

Has any other subscriber received theirs, or not? Yes, arrived on time - and I've not missed any of those. A political weekly is less certain in arriving, sometimes 1-3 days late. But now being delivered sometime, which wasn't true a year ago!

Certainly where you can pay catering staff a pittance (or less if they are family members) then the economics of running a business look better. I have rather mixed feelings about this - I love cheap 'Indian' food, (and the ingredients are certainly rarely expensive) - but I also quite like to see skill (properly) rewarded.

Now those people are at an age to retire, they will disappear. It is quite normal for businesses to be sold-on (where they are not kept in the family). One assumes that a business which isn't sold-on may no longer be viable. Fashions in e.g. food outlets change (as we have seen in LL). As do customers for food outlets. It is true that some business types do disappear over time - and others emerge. Often in areas where rents etc. are cheaper - which is why the face of london is always changing. That's broadly a good thing. Think of the influx of Vietnamese and indeed Turkish restaurants in Kingsland Road (Hoxton) or of Portuguese restaurants in Newington. LL used to be the go-to place for 'Indian' restaurants - it's less so now, but there is still quality to be found, and now amidst other cuisines.

Do remember that slug pellets and hedgehogs don't mix (they don't mix with toads and frogs either)- in both cases poisoned slugs eaten by either will do them no good.

Yes, fixed line broadband infrastructure for domestic use in ED is supplied either by NTL (branded as Virgin) or by BT Openreach, supplier to all other companies offering fixed line (non Wireless/ mobile) Broadband, which includes BT, EE and Plusnet (all owned by the BT Group). Only BT Openreach is obliged to wholesale local network infrastructure (Local Loop Unbundling). Many companies will additionally have their own racks of equipment (line cards) in BT exchanges, but some will use BT equipment end-to-end (although their service will be front-ended with their brand). Because some companies use their own equipment in BT exchanges, services offered will differ technically as well as by brand. It also makes a difference (as regards data speeds) whether the service is part-supplied using fibre optic in the local network or whether the copper local network is used all the way into the exchange. In ED BT supplied network has tended to have a better service record (and better contention rates) than some of the services offered by Virgin, who seem to have under-supplied capacity locally.

I don't think people used it then, either. But then, police in that era tended to 'proceed in a westerly direction...' rather than simply walk, as I recall.