PhilPhilPhil

My heart sank a little this morning when I realised that the 12 was back on it's normal route but I was pleased to see that at least the temporary traffic lights and most of the roadworks have gone.

I wish I'd invested a few quid in the company that makes temporary traffic lights a few years ago. I reckon I'd be a millionaire by now.

I haven't been anywhere near the closed section for over a week now, and from a purely selfish point of view I've been enjoying the faster journey to Camberwell while the 12 is on diversion. Does anyone know if they've finished the roadworks near Nigel Road yet? I'm guessing not.

I have Virgin internet and TV and they've both been fine all week. When I had problems with glitchy TV service I called an engineer out and he managed to fix it by going and fiddling with the box down the road, didnt take long. It's definitely worth doing if being at home for them isn't going to inconvenience you too much.

Perhaps there's a really good working man's cafe nearby.

The Camberwell roadworks looked like they were pretty much finished when I went through last night so hopefully that'll be cleared away today or tomorrow. But now my morning journey to work is being disrupted by a multi-hole dig at the top of Peckham Rye / Nigel Road courtesy of Thames Water. Grrr!

That's good to know, thanks very much for checking James. I hate the bendy bus with a passion so having it replaced by a double decker in increased numbers will seem like a dream come true.

Hi James. Apologies if this has come up elsewhere on the site recently... I wsa looking on Wikipedia earlier to see if there was any mention of when the bendy no.12 bus would be replaced by a double decker and it said November 2011. I was surprised to see that you were the source of the information. Fame at last! But the info was from something you posted over a year ago so I was wondering if you knew whether that date was still valid or if it had been pushed back? Cheers, Phil

I'll be very happy if it's completed today. I went past on Monday evening (after the usual delay) and it didnt look anywhere near being completed but hopefully they've had a sudden flurry of activity this week. But as I understand it Southern Gas are not too bothered by penalties arising from delayed completion of roadworks and I've always assumed that ultimately it's the customers that end up paying for it. I don't reach that part of my journey home til 7ish but I heard they were finishing work at 4 oclock each day, is that right?

I think a good way to make it more appealing to the people of ED is to play up the art angle of tattoos. As I've said before a lot of tattoo places can be intimidating from the outside, so if it looked more like a shop with art on display, books for sale etc then at least that would arouse curiosity and encourage people to browse and chat to the staff. You could even serve coffee as a sideline if you wanted people to hang out. Not that ED is short of places to drink coffee, of course. Permanent face painting for the kids probably wouldnt be such a good idea.

As a few others have said it might be a bit expensive to open in Lordship Lane but somewhere nearby would be fine I think. Northcross Road would be ideal but anywhere visible should do the trick. It's a small area so word would get around quickly anyway, especially if you did plenty of leafletting. And maybe a few more tattoos in the area might stop some people thinking they are only for sailors and convicts.

Are you planning to have a website? Doesnt have to be fancy or expensive but any kind of online presence helps you reach out to other areas, show off your work and give people an idea of what they should expect to pay. I'm not a website designer touting for business, by the way!

Yeah good luck Pete, it would make a nice change and add some colour to the area (forgive the unintentional pun). East Dulwich isnt the most obvious place to set up shop to be honest but maybe the locals are more adventurous than we're giving them credit for. I don't know if there are many tattooists in the surrounding areas so you might be able to attract business from Peckham, Herne Hill, Forest Hill etc if you market it properly. I think people are often put off of tattoo parlours because they can look quite intimidating so it would help if you made yours look approachable. Blacked out windows tend to deter the curious!

It's not an ideal alternative but if I was faced with a 19 minute wait (possibly longer) for a 363 to Crystal Palace I think I'd get the 176 or 197 to Sydenham and then walk through the park. I've done that a few times and it's a nice walk but of course not so great if you're weighed down with equipment or just not feeling very energetic.

Do any of the 37 stops between Peckham Rye and Herne Hill have indicators to say when the next one is due? I think one or two of those along the route would make a big difference given the infrequency of the service and lack of alternatives. I dont use the 37 much now but in the past I hated waiting for it and having no idea if it would be quicker to walk.

When I worked in Putney I would use the 37 in the morning but only in the school holidays. It just takes too long to get through the area around Alleyn's most of the time and I found it quicker to walk from Barry Road to Herne Hill. I don't imagine there is much that can be done about that though is there, options are pretty limited with regard to changing that part of the route. The return journey used to be terrible years ago and it wasnt uncommon for an East Dulwich bound bus to suddenly terminate without warning at Herne Hill. It definitely improved over the years but there still arent enough buses, especially in the morning when it's frequently packed by the time it gets anywhere near Alleyn's.

Speaking as a Labour supporter generally I have to agree with Loz here... James always seems like he has a genuine desire to help people and his availability here is really refreshing. I don't get to spend a lot of time on the forum so I probably haven't seen a lot of James's posts but I don't get the impression that he comes here to push his political agenda especially.

I recently had a similar wait at the Plough for a 40... allegedly due in 17 minutes but took well over half an hour to arrive. Then two came at once so everybody got on the first one. The second one went roaring off up the road, then the one we were on spent ages at each stop "to regulate the service". Then halfway up the road the driver announced that he'd be terminating at Monument instead of Aldgate. I'm now seeing "17 minutes" as code for "we have no idea when the bus is coming, you should probably make alternative arrangements".

This evening there were temporary traffic lights at the 3 way junction by Nandos (Coldharbour Lane?). So traffic is now running in all directions and I assume the buses are now back on their normal routes (the 40 definitely is) but I should imagine there will be tailbacks in all directions as the road / gas works are creating such a bottle neck. Actually "Works" is probably the wrong word to use as there was no activity at all there at 7.30 this evening, just a huge fenced off area that was completely deserted.

Despite having already rubbished Virgin Media's broadband and tv service on another thread I have to admit that I've never had a problem with their mobile service. Reception is usually fine and their customer service has been good on the few occasions I've needed to contact them.

Thanks Siduhe. Fingers crossed they don't keep the diversion in place for that long!

Is there any sign of things getting back to normal yet? I get the 12 to work from Barry Road usually but they were few and far between this morning, I think they may have been turning a lot of them round at Peckham Rye because of all the extra bus traffic on the route due to the diversion. I gave up and went to the 63 bus stop on Friern Road in the end.

As Apples said, Virgin Media broadband and TV are both fine when they work but they are clearly over-subscribed in East Dulwich now so the service is becoming increasingly patchy, and once you have to deal with their customer service dept you are entering a world of pain. I've not had a working landline for over three years because I got tired of taking whole days off work just for their engineers to come round and say "oh its not your equipment, it's a problem with the box down the road. You'll need one of our other engineers to fix that for you, phone customer service again and they'll send someone round next week...". No idea what the other local options are like as I've been with Virgin for so long but I dont think I'd recommend them.

I've had Virgin Media at home for years and it definitely seems to have got worse in the last year or so. I've had broadband issues a lot recently, hours or days when I get no service at all. And my cable TV has been getting worse as well, I frequently have channels missing or freezing. I had an engineer round yesterday and he admitted that it was due to the number of Virgin customers in the area... the box that the information flows through can't cope with the demand so some of us are not getting a strong enough signal. I'm very close to ditching Virgin altogether but I get the impression that Sky are not much better. I can only hope that Virgin are taking steps to deal with the problem, especially as they were recently leafletting in the area to attract new customers. I hope they don't have any luck with that. I also had to take yesterday off work to wait for delivery of a wireless router from them... "any time between 7am and 7pm". Thanks for being so specific.