HeadNun

I'm basing it on 20+ years cycling in London and seeing the absolute biggest rule-breakers being my fellow cyclists. I once stopped at a zebra crossing to let a man cross and a cyclist behind me called me a putain for stopping. I've even witnessed a grown man aggressively ringing his bell and swearing at a four year old child for not getting out of his way.... on a footpath.... in Burgess Park. I genuinely cannot remember the last time a cyclist stopped for me at a pedestrian crossing. They give the rest of us cyclists and bad name and turn the traffic against us.

I am sick to death of cyclists not stopping at pedestrian crossings, thinking they're just too important and in too much of a rush for the rules to apply to them (and I'm a cyclist, have been for 20 years). I see it every day.

I thought all brachycephalic dogs had C-sections as standard? Perhaps your cousin was ill-advised in the first place?

Now, now Mal, there's no need to be pejorative about men of a certain age, with a certain skin colour, who live outwith a certain part of the country. Anyway, how do you know that these angry old white male protesters didn't live in London / areas affected by ULEZ - did someone go around and make a note of all their addresses? 🙂

Yep, sadly you're right Spartacus. I would have liked to have seen Rory Stewart stay in the race four years ago, I think he would have been pretty progressive. This article made me chuckle / stroke wretch. I wonder if the doctor friend who told him he has PTSD is the same one who told him he developed asthma from running in London. The chap has so much hardship going on, it's a wonder he can hold down the day job. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/may/20/sadiq-khan-says-he-has-ptsd-caused-by-death-threats

Your friends probably haven't been papped driving their dogs because they aren't in the public eye. It tickles me, not a little, that a climate warrior is defending a man taking three cars to walk a dog. If the Guardian had run the article I'm sure you'd have been up in arms. The story was everywhere and the facts speak for themselves. How is he setting a good example? It just looks like one rule for him and everyone else can do as they're told. There are plenty of PMs and MPs (who I'm sure have also received death threats) often papped running / walking their dogs without a gas-guzzling convoy in tow. And Khan isultimately answerable to the public, with the media holding him to account. What he did to Cressida Dick over the Charing Cross officers was fairly well hushed up and pretty appalling. I have no time for the man - he's far too concerned with how he and his work is perceived, over actually being effective.

Well this was a few years ago, before the threats ramped up. But I'm sure he'd be able to walk a dog without three sets of wheels - he could still have CPOs to keep an eye out. More important people / bigger targets have been able to walk pets before without a three-car, diesel convoy.

Alice, it was all over the press and, whether it's a Tory rag or not, you have to question how willing he is to practive what he preaches.

I simply can't resist posting this from the dear old DM... https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9915019/Sadiq-Khan-spotted-using-cavalcade-cars-drive-4-5-miles-walk-dog.html

Hmmmmmmm.... I got stung twice here (the position of the sign is terrible). The first time, it was an error, I got a PCN. The second time, I drove back to see what I'd done wrong and got another one (stupid, I know) Called Southwark and fessed up to having made the same mistake again, in the hope that they would be sympathetic. They were - the man I spoke to on the phone to confess my error in advance of them writing to me, sounded in agreement that the position of the sign is poor. My PCN was overturned - not because of a typo (as far as I'm aware).

Used to chat to him quite a bit. Lovely man. Kind of feel sorry to hear he was moved on by a developer purchasing the house.

I'm not a patient at this practice, but this all makes for distressing reading. It's really frightening the way things are going. A friend of mine was a GP in Devon and left her practice. She now does out of hours shifts for crazy money (yes, she has moral qualms about it, but when the incentive's there...) and she says at weekends there might be only two GPs on call OOH across the entire north county. If things are bad in London, they are even worse elsewhere. How this crisis is going to be fixed, I do not know.

Surely the review has been commissioned for the opposite reason - that a lack of competition is keeping prices up?

Leon's great - it's the second time I've called him out and I have only good things to say about him. Totally reliable, trustworthy, knows his onions and charges reasonable prices.

I would genuinely like to know how he, or his GP, can prove that his adult onset asthma is related to London air.