RichH

This has been my alarm clock for the last few weeks: Unfortunately it doesn't have a Snooze Button! But at least it's not as raucous as that other medium-sized green bird that frequents these parts 🙂

So we have: 1. People who own cars that they use for various perfectly legitimate reasons whether that be social/pleasure, domestic, business, mobility etc. 2. Other (relatively silent) folk don't own cars but are quite happy and capable to walk/cycle or use public transport. 3. A small but extremely vociferous group who don't own cars but have the belief that no one else should do either. 4. The Council, who, like any big business, will adopt almost any tactic to maximise their gains and minimise their losses whilst retaining their business/political credentials. 5. A few individuals that use this forum as a pulpit from which to preach their interminable "I Am The Way" political sermons. We have here the perfect recipe for another 100+ page "behemoth" where everybody will agree with nobody.

I've just been watching seven Magpies having a prolonged and extremely loud, vocal set-to. There appeared to be three pairs plus one on its own, so I can make a fair guess at what the squabble may have been about. Or maybe it's a secret never to be told! :)

I was delighted with the service provided by Niko who was happy to add me to his busy schedule despite it being nearly 8pm. Not only did he quickly diagnose the problem and fix it but he also spotted some other gremlins and made some adjustments so now everything is working better than it ever has. He really seems to go out of his way to do an exceptional job for a fair price. You don't need "Super Mario" when you have "Super Niko" on the case :)

A recommendation for Yacoub who repaired the crumbling brickwork on my garden path steps. A very pleasant and polite chap, he responded quickly to my enquiry, kept me informed about progress and did a splendid job. Everything was completed swiftly, tidily and conscientiously, for a very reasonable price. You can contact Yacoub here on the forum (@yacoubdidi) or call him on 07782 490146.

I don't know about the Park or Rye specifically but suspect that the rat population in these parts has been increasing since the pandemic lockdown. I've certainly noticed more of them around over the last year or two. Less people and thus less restaurants/cafes/takeaways/market food stalls etc. open in the "city" combined with more people now working from home means that there's less grub for rats up in town and more available here. They're merely following the path of least resistance to accessible food. The local foxes seem healthier and far less scrawny nowadays, maybe for the same reason.

It's a Sunday, but I've just had a pile of small packages delivered by Royal Mail some of which were originally posted nearly two months ago. The RM postman said he'd been drafted from South Norwood to help clear the ED backlog.

^^^ Yes, perhaps a tiny ray of hope. This afternoon I had my first delivery of a small package via Royal Mail since September. Granted, this was a replacement item and it should have been delivered on Saturday, but at least it did turn up! It was delivered by a random chap in a black tracksuit so I'm guessing not a full-time RM employee. But maybe they've finally got some temp staff in to help.

I'm "Crimean Corner" rather than Barry Road, but postal deliveries here have been erratic for the last few weeks. I recently received a large number of letters in one delivery, some of which were about two weeks overdue. This morning I posted a letter in the pillar box on Mundania Road and noted that it didn't appear to have been attended to by Royal Mail since Monday, assuming that they remembered to change the little day indicator plate. And it's not even Christmas yet! :(

Modern Macs support both FAT32 and the (formerly proprietary Microsoft) ExFAT format so you should have no problems formatting (if necessary) the USB key on a Windows computer and also using it with a Mac computer.

The "Durex" name was also used by several European watchmakers from the 1920's to at least the 1950's because, I suspect, it combines the concept of durabiltiy/robustness with a name that sounds and looks to be a little like Rolex.

All spiders are poisonous. Well, almost all. But UK spiders are very unlikely to bite you with the possible exception of the False Widow spider, which may bite if roughly handled. As told to me by an acquaintance that collects the horrible things inc. Tarantulas and the like. Yuck!

If you don't have Microsoft Office you could also use LibreOffice, which is free, and use the "Export as PDF" function.

annie7 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I live at the park end of Henslowe Road and have > recently heard what I think is a little owl > calling at night. I recall reading somewhere that > a pair were sighted in Peckham Rye Park in the > last year or two. Has anyone else seen/heard them? Yes, I've heard them occasionally, particularly in the last 5 years or so, around One Tree Hill. Not nearly as frequently as Tawny Owls.

A link is available on Royal Mail's website, as @ianr mentioned here on 17th. December: https://personal.help.royalmail.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/12556 From that page there's usually another link to "Deliveries Today" which will show a list of the areas where deliveries are adversely affected. That link is not currently shown as there are no deliveries today, tomorrow or Monday (New Year's Day, Sunday and a Holiday on Monday.) Look again on Tuesday. "East Dulwich" will likely still be shown but the list was at least getting shorter last time I checked.

Royal Mail was privatised over 8 years ago and the service here was perfectly fine until they closed the Silvester Road site (the reasons for which have been discussed at great length elsewhere.) That, together with the pandemic, is the likely reason for the recent very poor service. There are around 1300-1400 Delivery Offices in the UK and 99% of them are providing a normal (good) service. Of the few offices currently listed as having problems many are in London and South London in particular. That, I would infer, is due to postal staff being off sick with COVID-19 or having to self-isolate. This, of course, has an impact on the ability to hire more temporary staff as there are too few regular staff around to show the temps. what to do. Deliveries will no doubt begin to pick up again as the regular postal staff recover and are able to return to work. Courier companies like Hermes, DPD, DHL et al, whilst also affected, likely don't have quite so much of a problem as they don't generally have to deliver to almost every address across the entire country (including Highlands and Islands) 6 days a week.

^^^ I was there on 9th. December (pre-booked appointment) and they were administering Pfizer.

ianr Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Does anyone have knowledge or experience of this still happening? Yes, I phoned Thames Water after seeing IlonaM's post above as I had no idea there was such a thing as a "single occupancy" tariff. They told me that they only move people to this (or other, lower) tariff if a water meter is requested but they subsequently find that one can't be installed. So, I have an engineer booked in for the end of the month and I should end up with either a water meter or a lower tariff than my current one.

The most likely possibility is that the password you're using to login to this site is the same as one that's been discovered in a data breach of another site and Google/Gmail is checking against a database of known breached login credentials. You can check yourself and find out more information here: https://haveibeenpwned.com/Passwords Just change your password for this site; the longer the better.

Thanks @JohnL, I'd not heard of those. Perhaps because I'm just a little bit older than their main target age groups :) These don't appear to cover every possible use (eg. some financial institutions don't list them as acceptable proof of ID) but they could be handy for day-to-day requirements.

I run into problems with not having photo ID increasingly often. My passport expired ages ago and, as I don't expect to travel abroad any time soon, I don't want to pay to renew it just for it to serve as photo ID. I have a paper driving licence which is valid for longer than the photo version would be so I don't want one of those either. I thought about getting the national ID card only to discover that the scheme was scrapped a decade ago. I'd like that scheme to be re-introduced but I guess it was too expensive and no doubt with all sorts of conspiracy theories surrounding it at the time, uptake was very low.

Can't remember what 120 FH Rd. was called in the 60's, but I do remember it sold ice cream :) The Greengrocer's was called Gorton's.

first mate is correct. The female (left) is larger than the male (right). When I looked back a couple of minutes later the male had vanished. A web of intrigue? I fear the worst but hope he just scuttled off to try his luck somewhere else :))

Never witnessed this before and sorry for the rubbish photo, but what I think we have here is an amorous male Garden Spider (right) making his intentions clear to a female Garden Spider (left). He's been rebuffed several times, runs away along a strand of web to the right but keeps coming back for more. I reckon she's going to get fed up (literally) soon and eat him alive :))

Parcel deliveries seem to be back to normal for me. By "normal" I mean the way they're supposed to be, within the published timescales. Yes, for the parcels that require a signature they take a photo of the parcel and your feet standing in the open doorway. This doesn't prevent parcels being delivered to the wrong address of course but presumably Ad_guy can be identified by his trainers :) Perhaps RM suffered a temporary "pingdemic" shortage of staff which has now been rectified?