Rockets

It was flying around yesterday as well - I think it is an Islander, often used by parachutists. Not sure what it is doing, seems to have stopped now though.

They never answer the phone at the sorting office........

Internal aerials wont cut it - external is the only way to go to guarantee good reception.

themaninblack - perfectly legitimate question if you ask me - are you leading the charge for the "Sensible Brigade"? ;-) Very odd to see the air ambulance sat in the park next to the hospital. One presumes that when it lands at a hospital it does so on the roof, not in the park next to the hospital. Thanks for clarifying buggie. Are they planning on building a helipad at the hospital if it is now a major trauma centre? The kids in the park at the time seemed to think having a helicopter parked near where they played was great fun and they were all waiting for it to take off again.

The helicopter was down in Ruskin Park yesterday afternoon - was it responding to a call or just resting in the sun?

Summer's coming = Tube strikes! Bob Crowe gets on the TV more telling us what an awful life Tube drivers have, how passenger safety is their No.1 concern etc etc - funny how when everyone else is getting laid off, getting pay cuts and generally having a miserable time of it the tube unions deem it appropriate to start taking strike action and making things even more miserable. Put a big sign in each cab saying - Wake UP! Put down the newspaper. Pay Attention. Do not open the doors on the wrong side

As a comedian once said: Listeria is the list of things the media talks up to cause hysteria. I just returned from a trip to San Diego and in a week there I saw one person wearing a mask (so naturally I sneezed and cloughed close to her!!! ;-) ). This sense of impending calamity is laughable and probably a neat ploy by governments around the world to take attention away from a faltering economy, drug companies who want to produce more anti-flu drugs and newspapers who want to fill pages at a quiet news time. Perhaps we should all go and congregate around Alleyns and get a dose to build up our immune systems for when the angry brother of Swine flu returns in the winter...... Now, where are those truffles.......

Those three-wheelers bikes do seem to pose something of a problem, no-one ever seems to be in complete control of them - but it also tends to be show-off fathers racing sons and wiping out in spectacular fashion. Saw one dad roll one once and hurt himself quite badly - both his sons drew up alongside the bloody wreckage and laughed at him!!! I regularily cycle in parks in London on my way to work and it's not dogs but suicidal squirrels you have to watch out for - they will quite happily stay perfectly still allowing you to pass at a safe distance only to then throw themselves towards the front wheel of the bike in a manner that suggests the nut harvest is not what it once was.

Those three-wheelers bikes do seem to pose something of a problem, no-one ever seems to be in complete control of them - but it also tends to be show-off fathers racing sons and wiping out in spectacular fashion. Saw one dad roll one once and hurt himself quite badly - both his sons drew up alongside the bloody wreckage and laughed at him!!! I regularily cycle in parks in London on my way to work and it's not dogs but suicidal squirrels you have to watch out for - they will quite happily stay perfectly still allowing you to pass at a safe distance only to then throw themselves towards the front wheel of the bike in a manner that suggests the nut harvest is not what it once was.

I noticed the higher number of boards going up in the last few weeks and wondered whether these were green shoots or people being forced to sell due to redundancies. Interestingly, there are some very competitive mortgage deals out there if you have a big deposit and maybe those city folks who are still getting bonuses are looking at this as a good time to get into East Dulwich. In fact, two agents recently dropped letters through our door saying we have folks wanting a house in your road - maybe they are bluffing to get valutations done but we have not had those for a long while now. And pleasantly surprised when we got an initial valuation on our property for a mortgage application - it was a lot better than I thought it was going to be.

The same helicopter flew over LL today. They weren't doing the school run were they - when I was at school every year an army helicopter would come, land and take some 6th formers up for a flight to try and persuade them to sign up, either that or we have an army camp in our midsts!!!!

Posters are up in the area (went up at the weekend) and taking it to the vets to check for a chip in the next couple of days. Meanwhile, all three cats are tearing round the house having a whale of a time and the new one looking very relaxed!

We still have this kitten...taken it in during this snow storm and it is becoming very at home here so I hope we will not be accused of cat-napping once the weather improves!

Thanks for the warning. ;-) Rather oddly the poor little blighter will willingly chomp down on the Iams we gave it (our cats wouldn't touch the stuff so we had some spare). It is such a gorgeous cat but is not chipped, has no collar and seems to have taken up residence under a bush at the end of our garden. I do wonder whether it has been dumped as it is not a pure bengal cat - if it starts looking a bit ropey over the next few days we may take it to the vets and see if there is a chip on it somehwere. Our cats seem to have adopted it though so the decision may be made for us!!

Poor thing has been sat on our garden furniture all day. It looks about 6 months old and has obviously been cared for but when presented with food it wolfed it down as if it had not been fed in a while.

Just wondering if this is your kitten: we live on Hillcourt Road and for the last few weeks a tiger-striped (caramel and black stripes) kitten with white lower socks has been coming into our house, playing with our cats, sleeping on our sofa when we are out, generally making itself at home and hanging out with our cats (including tucking into their food). It's a persistant so and so and whilst we have no issues with it hanging around (nor, rather bizarrely, do our two cats) I just wondered whether it does have a home to go to!! Thanks

Has anyone noticed a drop in mains water pressure over the Christmas period? Both mine and my neighbour's boilers are on the blink due to the falling mains pressure. Spoke to my plumber who says he has been inundated with calls over the last few days from people in the ED area with the same problem.

Keef already admitted that he shouldn't have said it, and that he doesn't like violence. Perhaps Keef should drive a bus - sounds like he has the patience of a saint, tends not to engage brain before stiking and regrets his actions afterwards!! Sorry, couldn't resist! ;-)

Bus drivers - bringing a new form of terror to the roads. Every day you see or hear about bus drivers driving dangerously, aggressively or down-right irresponsibly - does TFL have any quality control and do any of them actually have to pass an intelligence or driving test of any kind!!!? No matter who was right or wrong in that incident you highlight the bus driver should be arrested and charged with assault for the punch and assault with a deadly weapon if it is right he tried to run the cyclist off the road. If he had managed to run the cyclist off the road and killed him under the wheels he would probably have been signed off sick due to the stress! I really hope the cyclist reported it and the bus driver can have Christmas to contemplate his actions and give long consideration to where he will get another job.

It would be interesting to press the council to reveal where their camera "hot spots" are i.e. which cameras generate most revenue, sorry I mean fines! I have been caught by that camera and had the fine. I suspect that camera must be their number one best earner or something close which would beg the question as to whether the council ever takes steps to make it clearer for drivers when one spot "catches" so many. I was in an Addison Lee cab the other day who went through the same junction - I warned him as we went down Rye Lane but the "Buses Only" signs are not at all clear and when people are using Sat Navs it ignores that 30 yards of Southwark Council Fine Heaven!!!

Gemma, whilst your caring nature has to be commended I fear making a point of highlighting this gentleman's plight to his boss will have a negative effect. I am sure his boss is fully aware of the situation and highlighting it to him will probably only result in the guy in the shop being sacked. Also, for a multitude of reasons, I would probably edit any reference in your post to where this shop in question is.

njc97 - merely pointing out the way that everyone now wants to use fines as a way of generating revenue. Was sarcastic to the guy after he had threatened to arrest me (which the head of park's police later told me was not following procedure and would have been illegal itself). Also, the bigger worry is the damage these parkies, sorry "police officers" do to the reputation of the police in general. I have never had any reason for the police to stop me for anything before and this jumped-up, glorified metermaid (park's police get six weeks training yet carry handcuffs, wear the same uniforms as the police - most police want rid of them as they are council police not police) was the most abnoxious person I have ever come across. The power had obviously gone straight to his pretend police hat!!! ;-)

I got stopped by some over-officious, jumped up, wannabe policeman in Battersea Park (they have their own very contorversial Parks Police) some months ago for cycling on Carriage Drive. This plastic policeman threatened to arrest me as I could not identify myself with photo id, so I offered him my wrists to cuff me and he lost interest then. He then took my details, phoned my pregnant partner to identify me (and ignored my request to treat the call sensitively as most folks who receive a call from "police" to identify a cyclist are receiving bad news) and then said I would be fined anything from one pound to a million pounds (I am not joking he really said that). Took his number, wished him a good day catching violent criminals and went about my way. Wrote a letter to the head park keeper, sorry I meant park's police, and he went into great detail explaining what a manace to society cyclists are and how the fabric of society will crumble if cyclists use Carriage Drive in Battersea Park. Nice little to and fro going, someone even added the CEO of Wandsworth Council to the thread, but suddenly parkie, sorry I mean park's police, lost the will to fight after I pointed out the complete lack of no cycling signs on some entrances to Carriage Drive. I then got a lovely letter telling me how the solicitor of Wandsworth Council had decided not to send me to court and fine me but that I had been a very, very naughty boy and should not do it again. I know this is very different to being caught cycling on pavements but I think councils now see cyclists as another way to generate revenues. A policeman friend of mine quite nicely pointed out to me that if a parkie, sorry park's police, tries to stop me again and he is not wearing a high visibility jacket I don't have to stop and can quite legitimately run him over (apparently it is something to do with PACE)!!!

Could it have been part of the card fraud clampdown going on at the moment?

Sounds like by doing what they did the Somerfield staff will probably end up on the receiving end of an assault charge and probably lose their jobs and the shoplifter will end up with handsome out-of-court settlement so he will probably not have to shoplift for a while. Now, if only he had been resisting then they could have slapped him about a bit and taught him a lesson the courts would never do.......