silverfox

Louisa, on the example you gave Sainsbury's is cheaper. Maybe Iceland isn't necessarily the friend of the poor you'd like to think. Edited for typo

Some of us like to think of it as the Dulwich end rather than the Peckham end

I'm not sure you can deduce any such thing from this thread. There is a vocal element that have given their 'no' opinion. However this thread has had 6,318 views. Even allowing for deduplication of people viewing the thread several times there must be a silent majority of more than 1,000 people who have yet to make their views known. You would need an EDF poll similar to the election poll to get a truer sense of people's views.

Just going back to James's original post for a minute about having an anchor type store coming into the area which presumably would attract other big names. I once met a former personal secretary to Sir Richard Greenbury, former M&s chairman, who negotiated M&S's move into a big shopping development in Leeds (I think it was). The City council paid M&S ?20m to move in. Money regarded as good value in terms of the city's development plans given the employment it brought and the other stores that followed. My point? Is James proposing a development plan for East Dulwich? If not, is it not more a case of whether a Waitrose/M&s can be induced to come here rather than whether we want them or not?

Unless the Co-op or Iceland closed down, the only place big enough on LL to accommodate an M&S Simply Food or a Waitrose smaller-format convenience store would be the police station. Further afield Merton Timber would be a good site if they sold up or there's the old Dulwich hospital site and both these sites could allow for a full supermarket or large M&S foodhall. The question I suppose we have to ask ourselves is what's in it for these prestigious outlets to come to ED? Their bean counters will have done their maths. If Waitrose can tell from it's Ocado deliveries that a substantial number of ED/Dulwich/WD residents already order their products then it might be viable. ED will already have been profiled, as it is now and with projections for future demographics with extensions to rail networks, baby boom families settling into middle age, etc. M&S and Waitrose aren't going to spend possibly ?1 million plus to set up here on the off chance that they make take some business away from existing supermarkets and local retailers unless there is a realistic prospect of making a substantial return.

For our anniversary a couple of years ago I thought I'd treat my wife to a special meal and try my hand at cooking that Japanese dish Fugu. Couldn't believe it Moxons don't stock the deadly Puffer fish I required.

What did you say kidkruger? The coop doesn't stock vegetables/fresh produce after 1660? Wasn't the potato introduced to Europe around that year?

I hope your loyalty is rewarded with a 10% discount brum (and a plastic bag). My point was a Waitrose would threaten G&B's business - how could it not? Legalbeagle's wording was "...We don't sell the same wine as a supermarket..." (the implication being one of superiority) not that they sell different products. In my opinion a Waitrose would be a welcome addition to ED and might shake up the local independents into providing even better service.

I have to agree with Huguenot here. I don't think the idea of subjective spiritual experience really helps us here in trying to answer the question 'Is there a God'. Subjective spiritual experience is just that - subjective. It could be the ramblings of a mad man, or caused by illness, hallucinogenic drugs or a propensity to believe in the Divine. There is a reason the Vatican is cautious every time someone says they've seen, spoken with God or is the beneficiary of a miracle. Religious belief can verge on plain old mass hysteria (eg moving/weeping statues). If God exists, that would be an objective fact. It may be an objective fact beyond our limited comprehension. But no matter how sincere a person may be referring to a personal spiritual experience of God it does not provide the proof necessary to convince a sceptic.

Bravo legalbeagle! Love the snobbery about "... We don't sell the same wine as a supermarket..." If Waitrose moved in (more than 1,200 wines, spirits and champagnes to choose from) I think you'd find you may have to think again about selling a couple of bottle wines for ?25 without the common courtesy of a plastic carrier bag. Otherwise you may find how fickle the ED ? is.

Strikes me you're all so busy objecting to up-market supermarkets you forget that ED is in danger of being taken over by estate agents. Start at Goose Green and walk up the Lane. Of course Legalbeagle will object. If Waitrose comes in expect at least ?2 off a bottle of Green & Blue's overpriced (in the absence of competition) wine.

Thanks Hal, I bow to superior knowledge. Huguenot, what is this religious dimension you've introduced here? Let it go. I accept evolution and I accept scientific method. Where I give my tuppence worth is when science tries to create grand theories that are no longer scientific. And the general acceptance of the 'Out of Africa' axiom is fair game as far as I'm concerned. You state: "...The 'out of africa' theory isn't even a belief - it's a best estimate derived from the huge depth of evidence currently at hand..." I agree, except that it's obvious that you BELIEVE it, DJKillaQueen BELIEVES it and mockney Piers BELIEVES it. In fact so strong is their BELIEF (note caps here) that they result to sniggering about the fact that the Daily Mail reports on articles published in reputable Journals such as Nature. Therefore it must be wrong. I don't take that view. Science works at the level of what can be proved. Once science starts extrapolating/theorising into the realm of philosophy it needs to be questioned, not blindly accepted by the masses. Evolution? yes, up to a point. Multiple universes? Maybe. Worm holes? Maybe. Let's come down to a more practical level and take human evolution. I read that the "Out of Africa" or recent African origin hypothesis argues that Homo sapiens arose in Africa and migrated out of the continent around 50,000 to 100,000 years ago, replacing populations of Homo erectus in Asia and Homo neanderthalensis in Europe. Scientists supporting the alternative multiregional hypothesis argue that Homo sapiens evolved as geographically separate but interbreeding populations stemming from a worldwide migration of Homo erectus out of Africa nearly 2.5 million years ago.(see Wikipedia here). The 'Out of Africa' theory may be true. I don't know. And ignoring the recent discoveries of Denisovan Man and the Israeli findings in an earlier post, what commonsense makes me ask - yes commonsense - is what happened to those early homo sapiens who didn'nt migrate from Africa, ie, those that left Ethiopia and turned left (westwards) or headed south? These homo sapiens who, it is reasonable to assume, were part of the migration 70,000 years ago, didn't find their way to a land bridge and cross into the Middle East. Rather they ended up in what is today the Western Sahara, Sierra Leone, Liberia, in the West, or South Africa in the south of the continent. Surely this branch of homo sapiens would be purer than those who migrated to Europe and Asia but I can't find any information on a general internet search. No doubt there are academic papers on this. Where are the bones, teeth and mtDNA analyses of these 'purer' homo sapiens who took a left or headed northwest and south within Africa? What could these bones tell us about human evolution with the exception that there's no Neanderthal DNA in their genome? I would be interested to know.

Okay, let's take some of the points made by DJKillaQueen where she quotes what I actually said, not what people imagine I said or would prefer I had said to suit their purposes. DJKillaQueen said: "But the theory of humans originating from Africa IS based on DNA exploration. It's not dream't up out of thin air! ..." Wrong. The theory of humans originating from Africa is based on bone fragments and teeth found in Africa. As a result of recent discoveries some scientists think one group of early human ancestors left Africa between 300,000 and 400,000 years ago and quickly split up. One branch evolved into the Neanderthals who spread into Europe, while the other moved east and became Denisovans. Homo sapiens discovered in Middle Awash, Ethiopia, from 160,000 years ago were believed to be the oldest 'modern' human beings. Then around 70,000 years ago there was another wave of migration when modern humans quit Africa. These were our ancestors and they first encountered and interbred with Neanderthals - leaving traces of Neanderthal DNA in the genetic code of all non-Africans alive today. One group of modern humans later came into contact with Denisovans, leaving traces of Denisovan DNA in the humans who settled in Melanesia. DNA, that is sequenced mitochondrial DNA, or mtDNA, has only been used in the last 10 to 15 years to analyse these bones. But mtDNA?inherited only from mothers?contains far less information about a person's genetic makeup than DNA found in the nucleus of a cell, or nuclear DNA (see a quick genetics overview https://genographic.nationalgeographic.com/genographic/lan/en/overview.html). However the Cradle of Mankind theory has been called into question over the past 30 years as more anomalies are discovered. Recent discoveries of early human remains in China and Spain have cast doubt on the 'Out of Africa' theory and the new discovery of pre-historic human remains by Israeli university explorers call into question these earlier theories. Archeologists from Tel Aviv University (using mtDNA and nuclear DNA sequencing) have found eight human-like teeth found in the Qesem cave near Rosh Ha?Ayin - 10 miles from Israel?s international airport - are 400,000 years old, from the Middle Pleistocene Age, making them the earliest remains of homo sapiens yet discovered anywhere in the world. The findings of Professor Avi Gopher and Dr Ran Barkai of the Institute of Archeology at Tel Aviv University, published last week in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology, suggest that modern man did not originate in Africa as previously believed, but in the Middle East. So the problem for the Out of Africa theory now is that unless older bones/teeth are found in Africa then the Middle East would appear to be the Cradle for early homo sapiens. Further, the implication of this is an 'Into Africa' migration with early homo sapiens crossing the land bridge from the Middle East and following the coast down to what is now Ethiopia. DJKillaQueen said: "And did you not close your op with the following statement? Commonsense tells us humans didn't all evolve in Africa and somehow colonise the world (a scientific myth). An opinion made by you that shows an ignorance of broadly accepted scientific evidence...... " As above, this broadly accepted scientific evidence is now in question. A cursory glance at the serious scientific literature on the subject shows, as would be expected, that the scientists have never claimed the theory to be correct. Rather that mtDNA tends to support the view ... or it can be inferred that ... Further, if this latest Israeli study is correct it substantiates what many archeologists have long suspected, that modern homo sapiens sapiens are the result of interbreeding between earlier forms of homo sapiens DJKillaQueen said: " 'You've only got to look around you to tell we're not all from the same stock'. A common claim of the ultimately discreditted Eugenics theory....I'll take scientific explanation over your version of common sense any day!" Taken together with a May DNA study that found Neanderthals also interbred with modern human ancestors http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/05/100506-science-neanderthals-humans-mated-interbred-dna-gene/, the Denisovan finding suggests there was much more interbreeding among different human types than previously thought, Stanford University geneticist Brenna Henn said. "In the actual archaeological record, people have been talking about this for a long time. ... But before six months ago, there was no genetic evidence for any admixture between archaic humans and modern humans," said Henn, who co-authored an article accompanying the study in the journal Nature. This "new twist" in human evolution adds substantial new evidence that different types of humans?so-called modern humans and Neanderthals, modern humans and Denisovans, and perhaps even Denisovans and Neanderthals?mated and bore offspring, experts say. "We don't think the Denisovans went to Papua New Guinea," located at the northwestern edge of the Pacific region called Melanesia, explained study co-author Bence Viola, an anthropologist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. "We think the Denisovan population inhabited most of eastern Eurasia in the same way that Neanderthals inhabited most of western Eurasia," Viola said. "Our idea is that the ancestors of Melanesians met the Denisovans in Southeast Asia and interbred, and the ancestors of Melanesians then moved on to Papua New Guinea." (See "Interspecies Sex: Evolution's Hidden Secret?") If modern humans and Denisovan humans were separate species, their hybrid children probably wouldn't have been able to reproduce. But the hybrids apparently were able to have babies, otherwise the Denisovan DNA couldn't have been passed down to today's Papua New Guineans. Therefore, study co-author Viola reasoned, Denisovans and modern humans probably weren't separate species. As scientists "produce evidence that Denisovans interbred with modern humans (as did Neanderthals) then the implication is that modern humans, Denisovans and Neanderthals are all subspecies of Homo sapiens," he said. In short, if some of our early human ancestors encountered and interbred with Neanderthals - leaving traces of Neanderthal DNA in the genetic code of all non-Africans alive today and a second group of modern humans later came into contact with Denisovans, leaving traces of Denisovan DNA in the humans who settled in Melanesia, genetically we are not all from the same stock. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1341973/Did-humans-come-Middle-East-Africa-Scientists-forced-write-evolution-modern-man.html#ixzz19SfzVCyJ http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1340830/There-THREE-types-ancient-humans-30-000-year-old-finger-fossil-new-species.html# http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/12/101222-new-human-species-dna-nature-science-evolution-fossil-finger/

Sorry Peckhamgatecrasher, that doesn't count. You're a year too late.

This is an interesting example of the psychology of group dynamics. No where have I mentioned religion and yet you've all decided this was some sort of fundamentalist attack on science. my point is, if it is not true that human origins originated in Africa then your belief in that falsehood was as silly as you regard the story of Adam and Eve being silly. You would have believed a scientific myth.

Did the first humans originate in the Middle East? http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1341973/Did-humans-come-Middle-East-Africa-Scientists-forced-write-evolution-modern-man.html The problem with theories is that they are just that - theories. This is what I mean when I talk about scientific myths. The theory is accepted as fact by a gullible public. In years to come when the Antarctic is less frozen more human-like bones will be found and scientists will be running round like headless chickens trying to revise their theories. This is why I keep banging on about the religious like belief of science and those who lap it up.

Don't you smell a rat here DJKQ? The cavemen have been called Denisovans and the tooth and bone were found in Siberia. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn wrote One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich who told of his time in a Siberian Gulag. I wouldn't get too sniffy about the sources of anthropological education if I were you. 30,000 year old mitocondrial DNA must be a bit suspect. You may find some of the great 'discoveries' are due more to trying to hold on to sources of finance for such study than hard science.

There were THREE types of ancient humans: 30,000-year-old fossils prove Neanderthals and modern humans were not the only species on Earth I'm quite prepared to believe this but it does worry me that an old bone or tooth lead scientists to such conclusions. If I had a pound for every time some scientists find a fragment of an old bone/tooth and declare it to be (take your pick): a new species of dinosaur a third species of elephant a third group of humans Commonsense tells us humans didn't all evolve in Africa and somehow colonise the world (a scientific myth). You've only got to look around you to tell we're not all from the same stock. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1340830/There-THREE-types-ancient-humans-30-000-year-old-finger-fossil-new-species.html

I won't presume to say what Sue is arguing, she's more than capable of arguing her own corner. With regard to your Quasi legal point, your wording let's you down. A person is PRESUMED innocent until proven guilty. The fact is unless Madeline wandered off and met some tragic end with no involvement from anyone else then somebody was involved in her disappearance and is guilty, we just don't know who yet. They are factually guilty even if they haven't been apprehended and brought before a court and convicted. They are not legally guilty though until this happens and the burden of proof that applies in the jurisdiction is satisfied.

Mockney and djkq both miss the point. The examples you give have known endings. There's closure. The McCann case is far from closed and only one of a number of possible causes are true. Speculation will remain. At the moment only little Madeline is innocent.

That's not fair mockney. In defence of Sue there are still big questions hanging over this case and given it's high profile there will continue to be speculation.

It's well known he doesn't feel comfortable in this coalition. On the other hand power seems to have gone to his head and befuddled his judgment eg, the nuclear option of resignation that will bring down the coalition. An old man caught in a honey trap of two giggling lovelies boasting of going to war ... The empire is under attack ... Maybe the pressure of governing has led him to think he's Jabba the Hutt

Yep. Unless what he said was deliberately designed to embarass the coalition and/or to help Murdoch's cause (which may be his ulterior motive) then he has shown extreme naivety for such a seasoned politician as well as showing himself to be incapable of impartial judgement and being in cahoots with others in this anti-Murdoch conspiracy. And I'm only talking about his decision to appear on Come Dancing!

Correction: abused. Past tense. He's now removed from real decision making. Says a lot about the fagility of the coalition that they're so worried about the grumbling of Liberal backbenchers they were too frightened to kick him out with the imprint of a good old size nine on his backside.

Well if you were relying on The Telegraph to enlighten you no wonder you missed it. They've missed one of the biggest stories of the year and it was their giggling hacks that uncovered it. Big questions here Sean. Why is Vince abusing his power? Who else is behind it? why is The Telegraph supressing it's own scoops?