Muttley

I think that's a BP petrol pump (might be wrong). The one I'm thinking of is nearer to Lordship Lane.

OK, here's another one. Where in East Dulwich will you find an old-fashioned Shell petrol sign prominently in view? (I'm assuming it's still there, better check next time I go past....)

Yes, well done, both right - was particularly thinking of it from snowboarder's point of view. Another way of asking the question would be "Why will you never see a house advertised for sale in Cyrena Road?" - Answer - because nothing has the address cyrena road. Completely useless piece of trivia, and yet somehow compelling... Could probably create a complete East Dulwich round for a Magdala quiz along these lines. Anyway, I'll return to my basket.

Along the right lines...

For those who like East Dulwich trivia questions: Cyrena Road is a quite a long road in the middle of residential East Dulwich. There is something particularly unusual about it. What? (2 pts for the correct answer.)

Definitely weird.

This map is a real gem, where did you find it?

Buses may leave the depot individually every 10 minutes, but by Lordship Lane they come in pairs separated by 20 minutes. With 37s it's even worse, they come in fours separated by several hours. (Try catching a 37 from Herne Hill to E.Dulwich and you'll see what I mean.)

Standing at the Caffe Nero bus stop today, I noticed that the display indicating when the next bus is due was working. The 176 turned up within 2 minutes of when the sign said it would. Hooray! How long has this been back in operation?

The shop finally closed maybe 7 years ago. The new occupant(s) did a few cosmetic changes to the outside - pointing and so on - but nothing obvious since. Now it just looks tatty. If they aren't going to turn it back into a shop, it would be nice if they could at least give it a lick of paint.

Close to the heart of East Dulwich is a huge pile of rubble (aka the former east side of Dulwich Hospital) which appears to have evoked no comment on this forum. They seemed to be in an awful rush to knock the old buildings down last winter, but not much has happened since. Some folk reckon they brought in the bulldozers to pre-empt any attempt by English Heritage to save the so-called East Dulwich Onions (the domes on top of the towers). Southwark's website dedicated to the new Dulwich Community Hospital expresses the wishful thought that our new hospital will be built by 2011, a year before the Olympics. Hmm, why do I not believe this?

There, I thought that would get you interested. Out of curiosity, I just inspected the Hamptons website. They (among others) are trying to sell the two prominent new SE22 developments, "GV15" (by the station) and "DKH" (the one up dog kennel hill). A quick count up suggests that about half of GV15 remain unsold, while only two of DKH are sold. Have buyers finally decided to call the estate agents' bluff? Is this the beginning of the end, or merely the end of the beginning? Funny how, when times are rosy, one can be enticed by a description like this...: "Swamped in light from dawn ?til dusk and lording it over Dulwich from its hillside perch, DKH literally shimmers in the sunshine." But when things turn down, you suddenly realise you've paid half a million quid for a flat that looks out over Sainsbury's car park one way, and a council estate the other. (Or, in the case of GV15, a flat with William Hill on one side, a busy railway on the other, and an empty shop underneath.)

Well what do you expect, buying shoes from a cafe?

The supreme irony in the layout of this new school is that it has a puny playground and yet is due to be special*ising in sport. Blazers-for-goalposts football in the lunch-break for 950 sport-hungry boys? I think not.

I've been racking my brains, and just realised that my Harris post did indeed include the word special*st, because I commented that the school is supposed to be special*sing in sport. Good detective work, chaps.

I've just had Mr Southern Electric/Transco at the door promising that they cut out the middle man and will be able to transfer my gas and electricity to them in just five minutes ("just a quick phone call") and save about 40% on my current bills (we currently have EDF for gas and British Gas for electricity). Can anyone vouch for this? I feel jaded after listening to this sort of energy sales spiel many times over the years, but the savings he's offering are hard to resist if genuine.

* My Harris post was just a normal comment, I can't remember the exact wording but when I pressed 'Post message' it just didn't take. I tried from two different computers. Bizarre. I see there have been a couple of posts since by others. I'll try again later. * The word definitely appears in two or three posts, can't remember exactly which ones but certainly a couple of my posts in recent months (plus the one above) had it. But try it yourself: do a 'Search' of the entire forum for the word definitely, and I assume that you will, like me, find zero returns. This seems, again, to be some curious technical problem with the site. Nothing to do with grammar or spelling.

I've attempted twice to put a comment on the Harris thread this evening, and both times it failed to Post. Managed to post on another thread. What's going on, is that thread frozen? And another curiosity: when I do a search of the word definAtely (an old favourite of mine) there are 74 returns. When I search for the word 'definitely', which I know for a fact appears at least in a couple of threads, the Search reveals zero returns. Something odd happening with the Search feature methinks.

I've always believed that one man's fish is another man's poisson.

For me the best penalty would be to kick out Caffe Nero and grant a cafe licence to a start-up. It would send a strong message to the corporate bullies, encourage another local business, and give the people of East Dulwich what they want - a light and airy cafe in an excellent location.

As the last but one US election demonstrated, almost exactly 50% of Americans vote democrat. And I'm prepared to bet that almost all the (numerous) Americans who live in East Dulwich are Democrats Abroad. I have often wondered why it is generally deemed to be perfectly acceptable (by others, not by me) to bait Americans but not, say, the Japanese. It can't be about wealth. Substitute Japanese/Jap for American/Yank in the various comments around this forum and most people would probably feel a bit uncomfortable.

Reminds me that about ten years ago basements around the station end of Melbourne Grove were flooding with sewage etc (or so it was said) and there was a huge trench down the length of Melbourne Grove for months as they replaced the crumbling sewer. Elsie and Derwent were both closed off to traffic and there was road chaos throughout.

By all accounts Heber was a very different school in the 1990s. I'm told that they couldn't fill the spaces, and kids were being brought in from outside East Dulwich. Things changed when the dynamic new headmaster arrived maybe five years ago, and the school and its intake have been completely transformed, in part reflecting the demographic change in the neighbo(u)rhood. It's undergone a lot of refurbishment recently - new roof and so on.

I have an Australian passport. Muttley Juniors have American passports. But you wouldn't guess if you met us.

;-)