the_hermit

Heh yeah haven't even bothered to remove the emdash. The OP is AI slop as well.

It's local independent shops supporting one another.

Local (especially independent) businesses should do like Wheelers Oyster Bar in Whitstable and offer a discount to anyone who can show them a receipt from Chacarero dated the same day.

Yup Juan is amazing (and his partner can't remember her name!). Highly recommend the wine tastings. Won't be going to the new chain.

I have swum in it several times since it's reopened. No problems. The sand stuff is a bit off-putting but like all pools they'll have to test and log the water quality regularly so I think it's unlikely to be a health issue. The water is clearer than a pool I use regularly near my work - also with no issues.

On the whole I despise cyclists who jump reds as much as anyone (I had one crash into the back of me at the junction of Lyndhurst Way and Peckham Road). There are two scenarios where I do jump reds: 1 when it's safer e.g. junction of Eastcheap and London Bridge - first set of traffic lights the COVID narrowing of the pavement makes it safer to get out in front of the traffic rather than risk being knocked off by drivers passing too close. 2 when I could get off and walk (e.g. CPR and EDR by Goose Green) I just float across v slowly at walking pace no faster than the pedestrians.

You can hear them - they make a unmistakable skweee, skweee sound. We've never had any joy with our swift box though.

Actually I think they have been sold for 1 Euro. The FT headline was "Poundland sold for less than a pound" to much mirth.

If they're not sure they should at least be able to provide a range: reasonably best and worst case scenarios. It's embarrassing.

Still - anything's better than a Foxtons.

For these places to be good they have to be mega efficient: high volume high speed like the one in Camberwell next to Stormbird. If you can't hit that sort of tipping point you end up having to cut corners and you enter a sort of death spiral. The one at the south end of Lordship Lane near Joseph's is fairly hopeless.

I can hear Kneecap playing from close to Lordship Lane (admittedly I have my windows open)

V interesting ArchieCarlos. The UK is #1 at blocking and delaying investment (per the article I linked to above). This means we have pretty much the lowest gross fixed capital formation in the developed world and the economic results are there for all to see (this led to the nihilistic political environment that enabled Brexit which made things even worse). Some of this blocking and delaying is well intentioned and aimed at a better outcome but much of it a smokescreen to prevent any investment at all and is a money-spinner for consultants and lawyers. According to the FT the new Kent tunnel has cost £1.2bn so far even before construction starts of which £800m has been on consultants, planning and legal fees. 359,080 pages of documentation! This does not compare favourably with much more complex tunneling projects in countries like Norway or Germany.

There are excuses like this everywhere people want to build anything, which is why the UK economy is in such a state. Each individual project holdup like this (and the mast on Dog Kennel Hill) seems small in isolation but the compound effect of it UK-wide is why we are so unproductive and why there is no money for anything else like the NHS, fixing roads, collecting bins and so on. I'd be interested to know how the zoning rules (which of course can be changed!) compare to other much more liveable cities in northern and central Europe. I doubt cities like Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Zurich etc have inner areas like Darrell Road (to pick an extreme example) with bungalows! The "confidence to move into" argument is just pulling up the ladder. Before East Dulwich was built it was presumably green fields? Should East Dulwich residents have the right to preserve everything in aspic to disadvantage the generations that follow?

https://ukfoundations.co/ They highlight the most important economic fact about modern Britain: that it is difficult to build almost anything, anywhere. This prevents investment, increases energy costs, and makes it harder for productive economic clusters to expand. This, in turn, lowers our productivity, incomes, and tax revenues. In many cases today, as many of 40 percent of a new development’s homes must be subsidised for ‘affordable’ renters instead of being made available at market rates. These requirements function as a tax on new housing (and so local objectors often support them), redistributing income from every other private tenant to a lucky few. Countries with expensive rental housing also see movements for rent controls, and punitive rental regulations, like giving every tenant the permanent right to live in the property they occupy.