Adam&Fiona

Deary me Moos. You quote me as saying 'no-one is saying you shouldn't bring children into pubs' and use it to fit your post. When if you read ever so slightly above you will see what i actually said was "No-one AT FIRST was suggesting that you can't bring buggies etc into pubs" - my point being that the thread started off fairly inoccuously and then people took over and made their own personal gripes. Why did you change my words? Madness! I've just moved to East Dulwich and enjoyed the forum as a way of finding out about good places to eat etc. Plus I was impressed by the local passion. Now after only my second ever post (which i thought was simply explaining an issue rather than offering any real opinion) and reading how threads get out of hand I am already sick of people's attitude. That's me done on the site now. Thanks!

For those who haven't read the earlier stuff on the other thread, the discussion wasn't actually about the moral in's and out's of parents drinking in front of their kids. The topic was about parents who fill spare seating in cafes and pubs (particularly the smaller places) with buggies etc and refuse to move everything to free up more space. It seems that some people had spoken to the owners of some of these places and the owners had said it is annoying if 2 mums are taking up 4-6 seats (and drinking just coffee etc) and are there for the whole of the busy lunch period and costing the owners other paying customers due to the lack of space. After citing a couple of examples of women that had been asked to move their belongings to create room and having this refused under the indignation of them being paying customers, the theme was generally to voice annoyance at the inconsiderate mums around. NOT all mums! Just the rude ones who display a certain sense of entitlement and are offended at even being asked to move their pushchairs. No-one at first was suggesting that you can't bring buggies etc into pubs or that kids shouldn't be there. Simply that more effort could be made by individuals in some cases to see that they are taking up space, that the establishment is busy and that they could have some dialogue with the owner about a suitable place to put pushchairs etc whilst they eat. How do the nice family room people feel about the actual issue, rather than the personal garbage that happened afterwards?

Must admit I haven't read everything across all the pages, but unless I've missed something I can't believe that people have overlooked a more obvious solution. In my opinion a massive amount of parking space can be created by marking suitable spacing along the roads. On every road in every area there are badly parked cars either through selfish people deliberately taking up too much room or people simply driving into a gap and stopping in the middle. The number of "half car" spaces I see everyday walking along really annoys me, especially when it means I have to park away from where I need to be, simply because people do not park close to the vehicle in front / behind. Can't we mark simple spacing that encourages closer parking, allows more cars to park on the same stretch of road and prevent all this nonsense about permits?