howdood

Hi all - just to let you know that Live Band Karaoke is on tonight (Friday) at the Ivy House SE15 3BE. ?4 entry for singers and listeners. You can check out the song list online at livebandkaraoke.london See you there!

Hi all - just to let you know that the next Live Band Karaoke at the Ivy House SE15 3AJ is tomorrow evening (Sunday) - only ?3 entry for singers and listeners. 5-piece band and full professional sound system - all are welcome. You can check out the song list via our website www.livebandkaraoke.london See you there! h

Another recommendation: we have used them for several jobs on our house and all work has been quick and v high quality. Wouldn't use anyone else!

Hi all - just to let you know about the Live Band Karaoke at the Ivy House tonight. 8pm start, ?3 entry. Come and sing your heart out! Song list for tonight is attached.

Another recommendation for David from Norwood Roofing - fantastic team, took less than four hours to renew guttering and soffits front and back. Really professional job as well - made good as they went, and left everything looking very clean and tidy.

Hi all - a chance to sing your favourite cover with a live band of professional musicians on the historic Ivy House stage! Sunday 13th December, 8-10:30pm. You can turn up and pick a tune from our list of pop, rock, soul and funk classics, or even email requests in advance to live-band [at] ivyhousenunhead [dot] com . Entry ?5 on the door. The Ivy House is at 40 Stuart Road, SE15 3BE (on the 484 bus route from ED and the 343 from Peckham Rye).

Is it not the case that the issue with Melbourne Grove could be fixed if they simply sorted out the timings etc. on the lights on Townley / Greendale? Earlier comments suggested that the problem with MG had only become pressing after they made the changes to the signal timings and more people started using it as a run run as a result.

Traffic on EDG nearly back to normal levels this morning - hopefully they've corrected whatever mistake it was they made!

Hi James, many thanks for that. My best guess is that they have inadvertently switched the *timings* at the same time as the order of sequence (maybe transferred the EDG timing to Greendale and vice versa?) - at a rough count this morning, the Greendale lights are now green for somewhere between 15-20 seconds: much longer than they used to be and certainly longer than the EDG part of the sequence. The lengths of different parts of the sequence have definitely changed, and if TFL think they haven't then it's just a straightforward error on their part. As previous posters (here and on the other thread) have suggested, this is one it might be well worth pushing back on if you have a contact with the traffic people. Thanks!

Hi - James Barber, it's a couple of weeks since you very kindly offered to investigate this; please could you let us know what you've found out? Traffic this morning on EDG was - if anything - worse, with a lot of HGVs, scaffolding lorries, long-wheelbase vans (as well as the usual coaches and buses) stationary up to the junction all the way back past the hospital and down towards LL. Thanks!

Hi James - please do ask for more details, especially about how the impact of the change is being monitored and assessed. I can't see any major improvement in the safety of the children crossing to get to the local schools, but I can definitely report that it's made East Dulwich Grove feel like an absolute deathtrap for cyclists (and presumably pedestrians as well).

Hi - I cycle up from East Dulwich to this junction every morning to go to work, and can confirm that the timings on the lights have been changed: for one thing, the pedestrian crossing part of the cycle now takes place after rather than before traffic is released from East Dulwich Grove; for another, the timings have been shortened by a ridiculous amount (i.e. only 4-5 cars per cycle getting through from EDG on green before the lights change back). The current timings are really dangerous - the crossing time for pedestrians is too short - and they have led to a permanent queue of traffic almost all the way from Lordship Lane to the junction between 7.55 and 8.15 on weekday mornings (and presumably worse after that), whereas on the old light timings you could guarantee that on clear, dry days there would be next to no queue for the lights on that side of EDG up to about ten past 8. As well as the pollution implications of (deliberately?) engineering a half-mile of stationary traffic every morning on East Dulwich Grove, there's the issue that cyclists coming up from LL either have to squeeze past on the left of the cars (which isn't really possible given the parked cars, lack of cycle lane, and new cyclist-unfriendly street furniture/traffic calming/pavement improvements sticking out into the road at random intervals), or pass the stationary traffic on the right, facing into the oncoming traffic (which is how the London Cycling Campaign advises us to pass queues of traffic, btw). Of course, cyclists could always get off and walk, or ride on the pavement. But failing those, it's only a matter of time before there's a serious collision. Can anyone shed any light (no pun intended) on who is in charge of the timings of these lights and how to complain to them directly?

Glad to hear that other people have had good experiences with Alex at Crown Joinery; however I can't personally second the claim that he is a "perfectionist": one of the minor issues I have been trying to raise with him is the fact that three of the four door hinges on the door he supplied have screws broken off in the holes: the bodies of the screws have just been left in the holes instead of being drilled out and replaced (see photos below). I've also added a photo of the door as it sits in the entrance of our house - easy to see that it is too small for the brickwork. Unfortunately Crown joinery has ignored my last eight emails, and has not returned any of my voicemail messages. I would strongly advise anyone thinking of using this company to ensure that they get a copy of all plans in advance (with exact measurements and dimensions), and a statement in writing of exactly what is going to be done. I'd also recommend double-checking any measurements to your own satisfaction. We were not asked to approve the measurements on Alex's scaled plans for the door and yet (as I understand it) his claim is that we are responsible for the mistakes made in measuring up and planning it. I was hoping that I would be able to have a sensible discussion with Alex at Crown Joinery about the issues with the door, but he has still not responded to my repeated requests for a meeting or site visit with my builder. Our next step will be for our builder to install a temporary door, and return the "bespoke" door and frame to Crown Joinery as not fit for purpose as it is the wrong size for the house. We are devastated that our hopes for a high-quality front door to finish our home have come to this, and have now had to cancel our holiday plans for this year because of the expense of dealing with this and finding another joinery company to supply a door that fits our house.

Hi - just so it doesn't seem like there is absolutely no progress here, I should add that I did manage to have a short phone conversation with Alex from Crown Joinery on Wednesday morning. However, that conversation was inconclusive and since then he has not responded to any of my emails or phone messages requesting clarification. I think it's only fair on Crown Joinery that I state what I understand to be their position regarding this dispute, which is that - since I visited the workshop while the door was being planned, to discuss an alteration to the position of the fanlight - I bear total liability for any subsequent mistakes in marking up templates or drawings for the door. However, Alex from Crown Joinery has not responded to repeated requests for him to pass on photos of the blueprint scale drawings for the door which - according to him - I "approved" by attending the workshop during the planning process. At time of writing he is also refusing to agree to a site visit with my builder to see the issues with the door himself. So we are currently a couple of grand out of pocket and stuck with a front door, frame, and fanlight that do not fit our house, and no way of getting a satisfactory response from the company that supplied it. Does anyone on the forum have any suggestions about how to proceed in this situation? I know of two other people who have been in the situation of receiving a front door which was incorrectly sized, but in each of those cases the company involved immediately replaced the door with a correctly-sized one at the company's own expense. I'd be very grateful for any advice forum members have in this regard.

Thank you for replying Alex. I'm disappointed that it took a post on this forum to get a response from you! I have resent you my last email to [email protected], which explains in full what the mistake is with the measurements on the template that you made up in your workshop (which I had never checked or been asked to approve before you emailed me a picture of it yesterday). Do I have your assurance that if I call you tomorrow you will either answer or return my call? I have been trying to contact you by phone to discuss since Friday afternoon and left many voicemail messages on your mobile but so far have not been able to get a response. Also can you confirm whether you are happy to visit the site to see what the problem is in person? My builder and I have both tried to get you to come and look at the problems with the door but so far you have not been willing to do so. Thank you! Howard

A word of warning: we have had a *very* bad experience with Alex Fernandes of Crown Joinery. I can't go into full detail here but would strongly recommend that anyone considering using them PMs me for more information about our experience before proceeding with an instruction; we are currently moving to prepare legal action against them. The short version: Crown Joinery have supplied us with a front door and fanlight which - because of a mistake marking up a template in the workshop - is 10cm narrower than it ought to be to fit the brickwork. Since I pointed out the mistake, Alex has stopped replying to emails and is not answering or returning my calls; he has also refused to make a site visit with my builder to look at the issue and discuss further. As I said, PM me if concerned and I'll happily pass on email correspondence, photos etc. h

Whoever it was was tasked with (and paid for) "repairing" the holes. I won't cast aspersions in the absence of confirmation of which firm was responsible... :)

Cycling on the pavement is depressingly common round here, even from people who have the full "rig" (expensive bike, helmet, hi-viz). To some extent I blame the cycle-safety lobby (including the London Cycling Campaign, of which I am reconsidering my membership): they motivate the call for better road facilities for cyclists by exaggerating the dangers of cycling on the "normal" road network, which plays on the fears of people who didn't feel completely comfortable on the road in the first place. It's not just that cycling on the road (where drivers expect to see you) is generally safer than cycling on the pavement (where no-one is looking out for you, especially at road junctions); it's also that the best way to make the roads safer to cycle on is for *lots of cyclists to ride on them*. Even in my short time (seven years) in ED, I've noticed cycling gradually feel safer as more and more cyclists are on the roads. Cycling is no longer a niche, rebellious activity, and it's high time that the minority of idiots stopped giving the rest of us a bad name.

Hi James, Just wondering: what kind of quality control do you have on pothole "repairs" in the area? I cycle to/from work along East Dulwich Grove every day (on the road, not the pavement, and stopping at zebra crossings and red lights, before I get a load of abuse from the usual suspects), and increasingly I'm finding myself having to swerve all over the road to avoid deep/ serious potholes (the sort which would take you off the bike and possibly buckle a front wheel in the process). And here's the thing: many of these have technically been "repaired" - just really, really badly. Here's what you'll see on the road surface if you stroll the couple of hundred metres between the LL junction and the top of the hill by Alleyn's: * Holes with one side filled and the other left untouched; * Holes with a tiny amount of tarmac thrown into them (not enough to level them to the road surface), leaving anything up to a two inch drop from the rest of the road surface; * Holes which have been filled in, next to other holes (which were there at the same time) which have been ignored; * Holes which haven't been filled in, but had the "square bracket" marking sprayed onto the road (which I gather means "this should be filled in") anything up to six months ago (yes, I know that bit of road really well by now). For drivers (I drive a car as well), potholes are an inconvenience and possibly a source of expensive damage - but on a bike these things can seriously injure you. It's especially bad on this stretch because a lot of them go down to a previous road surface which is a long way down from the current one. Has anyone discussed the shoddy workmanship with the contractor?

Hi Huggers - we have had share orders coming in via the website continually yesterday afternoon and this morning, and have just re-tested the website ourselves; it is working, as far as we can make out. Usually the reason for the share form refusing to submit is that one of the fields has not been filled out correctly (in which has it should display an error message next to the field in question); apart from that the most likely reason for it not working would be that you have javascript disabled in your web browser. If you've ruled those options out, then please do email us directly at [email protected] with details of which browser and OS you're using and we'll try to track the issue down further. h ps: you can also order shares by post using the form at the back of the share prospectus.

+1 to DJKillaQueen's comment - the road surface approaching this junction from the West (ie the Tesco side) is one of the most dangerous bits of tarmac for a cyclist in SE London. I had assumed that the original works would have included resurfacing this entire stretch - after all, the whole of the Colyton Road junction was resurfaced and that was in much better condition. Instead, it looks like they have selected about half the existing pot holes (seemingly at random) and then partially filled them, without levelling out afterwards (so some pothole became mini-hills in the road). I'll watch with interest to see if their second attempt is more successful... massive kudos to whoever in the council took them to task about it.

+1 on potholes - I speak as someone who lost a suit jacket and a fair amount of blood after unscheduled contact with the tarmac last summer thanks to one of the many huge potholes toward the LL end of East Dulwich Grove. The lesson holds for the rest of ED: it's no good having a nice green cycle lane painted on the road if the surface itself isn't fit for two wheels. One thing that would help a lot: a bit more careful monitoring of road repairs. On my 2 mile daily commute I could point out about a dozen hazardous potholes which are probably on a council spreadsheet as "repaired" when really all that has happened is that someone (Conway?) has dumped a spoonful of tarmac in the middle of them then filed an invoice.

Re Anybol's "cycling can and should be made more safe by way of creating seperate lanes etc where possible". I have to say that separate cycling lanes are the most dangerous thing on the roads. One: they mean that drivers don't feel they have to defer to (or even look out for) cyclists who are turning right - as now the cyclist is "changing lanes" rather than the driver "overtaking a vehicle signalling a right turn" as would be the standard Highway Code interpretation. Two: they encourage cyclists to pass stationary traffic on the left, which (as he points out) is generally more dangerous than overtaking on the right as motorbikes, mopeds, and sensible cyclists do. Three: given the dodgy quality of the roads in Southwark, the last thing you want is to be riding on two wheels over a pothole which you've been forced into because the cycle lane leaves you nowhere else to go (I nearly came off my bike in moving traffic last week on a 6-inch deep pothole in the middle of the bike lane going East from the East Dulwich Road/Peckham Rye junction.) Four (and finally): every cycle lane ends somewhere, and however many cycle lanes there are, we all have to ride on the open road sooner or later. The more cycle lanes there are, the more people come to believe that bikes "don't belong on the roads" and drive accordingly. I've had enough abuse from motorists over the years to know that the biggest problem is the number of drivers who sincerely believe that bikes shouldn't be on roads, full stop. Cycle lanes are a short-sighted concession to such bigots!

I walked past this site at about 4.30pm this afternoon. There was a "contained" fire burning in a metal container... and next to it a large, uncontained bonfire of all the timber that was too big to fit in the metal drum; as far as I could see in the dark, much of it consisted of painted beams from the garages. One man working on site, looking pretty miserable trying to demolish a brick wall on his own with a sledgehammer. Pretty sure that the fire would still have been raging when he locked up and went home - it had a good five hours' worth of fuel on it. Worth another visit from the environmental team perhaps? Suggest at the end of the working day when they're trying to get rid of the day's waste.

Just got the leaflet for this through my door. The phrase I'm worried about is "new mandatory cycle lanes". What does "mandatory" mean? On days when I feel sprightly I happily bike round Vauxhall Cross on the road without using the poorly-designed cycle "solution". Ditto for the Elephant. Is this now a proposal to prevent cyclists from using stretches of road which are deemed (by non-cyclists) to be "too dangerous", and instead to use the "mandatory" cycle solution? That would be a terrifying prospect. I emailed the consultation email address two days ago to ask about this, but so far have not received a reply.