David A

Phnom Penh is definitely worth a visit - it's fascinating and surprisingly beautiful, especially at night. Have a drink on the balcony of the ?Foreign Corresponents Club?. Angkor Wat, just outside Siem Rep further north is pretty stunning. Saigon is an experience, and well worth a visit. The food in Vietnam is the best in the region for me. A boat from down the Mekong to the Delta region is really worth considering for a couple of days, but crossing the Vietnam/Cambodia border can be a bit of a hassle that way. Bangkok is the main intercontinental hub for that region. You'll probably end up transferring through there so you shouldn't miss it. Chiang Mai in the north is a lot less rushed and a lot more Thai. If you are heading that way, I'd go to one of the islands in the Gulf of Thailand for the beaches. The Vietnamese South China Sea coast seemed to get much more changeable weather. Sihinoukville in Cambodia has a couple of nice beaches, but I believe there's been a big influx of Chinese money to build hotels and casinos since I was there six or seven years ago. I?d check out the Air Asia website for flights around the region, they were staggeringly cheap a few years ago.

You could avoid central Greenwich altogether, it's a nightmare at the best of times, and get into the park through Blackheath Gate. There are direct trains to Blackheath from Peckham Rye and Denmark Hill.

Bic Basher, Comparing the frequency of the ELL service to the Met line and Mill Hill branch is a bit misleading isn't it? The majority of stops on those lines are also served by other services - the Jubilee in the case of the Met and the High Barnet branch in the case of Mill Hill. And I?d be highly surprised if most people on the Hainault loop could squeeze their false chests out of a tanning booth for long enough to watch ?The Only Way is Essex?, let alone use a tube line. It?s ridiculous that a vibrant and densely populated inner London suburb like Peckham will have a service frequency on a par with Zone 4 outer suburbs like Preston Road and Northwick Park, the latter a place so unspeakably faceless that it?s probably twinned with somewhere that doesn?t even exist. Although it does have a service that goes directly into central London. Every fifteen minutes. Like we have with the South London line. In twenty years of working in London there is, at most, one year in total (working in Shoreditch and Olympia) when the ELL would have made my commute easier and I suspect most people would find the same thing. I?m sure the ELL is a very nice line and I?ll use it at the weekends, not because I need or want to, but just because I can. It just strikes me as something of a trophy, rather than a transport link that we actually need like the South London line.

You're quite right Jeremy. The ELL will be great if you fancy a curry at the 'Lahore Kebab House' in Whitechapel, or a pint with a mate in Richmond. I do both now and again. Likewise Arsenal fans, fans of the Six Nations and displaced Dalston scenesters will delighted. I'm none of those. But getting into central London, particularly the parts most people want to go, will be a lot trickier, and it's far from great at the moment. It's a nice add-on, but it's not close to being a replacement for the South London line. I've also got reservations about any line that links Peckham (the new Dalston) with Dalston (the new Shoreditch) and Shoreditch (pretty Shoreditchy already). Even if you could find your way through the single speed bikes and ironic head-wear to get a seat, it would probably have a sockless, loafered hoof on it. We?re replacing (pretty much) direct access to the West End and Borough areas with a line which connects us to the ?World?s Busiest Railway Station? and 'London?s Most Overrated Craphole'. In short: The Winners: Me (on the occasional weekend); Other lovers of authentic Punjabi food at reasonable prices (BYO); Gooners keeping their heads down at Surrey Canal Road; Rugby fans called Olly, pissed and singing ?I Stuck My Finger in the Woodpecker?s Hole? with their knobs out, on their way to Twickenham; People with asymmetrical haircuts and Mac AirBooks. The Losers: Pretty much everyone else really. Frankly, it?s much more of a ?Bah? than a ?Meh? for me.

Try looking at 'skyscanner.net' Assuming you're flexible, click on the 'flexible' option, then 'whole month' and it graphs out the cheapest / average prices by day. I've just had a quick look and you could do it for around ?760 return depending on your dates. I've used it quite a lot and ended up on airlines I'd not heard of, but they've been absolutely fine.

Belligerent, AM. And/or Welsh. Think Craig Bellamy or Gavin Henson. At first I thought the thread was about famous people in a chippy and it made me think of the time I ran into a pretty chubby Daniel Bedingfield coming out of Efes kebab shop on West Norwood High Street carrying two large doners. I asked him if he was 'Gonna get through those' and he told me to f*ck off. But, Daniel Craig. Great Bond, but always comes across as a prize tit in interviews.

Same here. Just that model. I can't remember what brand it was, but knowing my dad it wouldn't have been top of the range. It used to start with quite a satisfying thrum when you turned that on/off knob on the right though. I think it's still in my Mum's garage, can't imagine what state it's in now or the K-Tel and Ronco records that are with it.

I'm still struggling with which bit was the dullest. Tess Daly's utterly vapid piece from Battersea Park or pretty much anything that involved Fearne Cotton. I quite liked Huw Edwards' crestfallen 'The rain did have an effect' line at the end though. He was only a couple of pints away from saying 'What a load of old bollocks that was'.

Mmmm. He hasn't got an original style has he? A bit derivative? Sounds like somebody's been reading Bukowski whilst watching 'Danny Dyer's Hardest Awaydays' on the Bravo channel.

If you go to the stage I've pasted in below and enter your login, it should lead you through to the big green diagram of the ground. If you click on that it should lead you through to the 'enter code' stage. I did it half an hour ago and it worked for me. https://www.eticketing.co.uk/surreytickets/details/event.aspx?itemref=1961

You're right. It's Gummidge.

No, but it sounds like Charlie Drake and/or Jimmy Edwards would have been in it. And possibly Deryck Guyler.

Mr Kong on Lisle Street has been around for years and is always good. They do 'fish lips' and 'duck feet' if you're feeling brave, but anything 'in hot-pot with yam paste' is also worth a try. And the head waiter looks like Cliff Richard, which is pretty freaky.

It sounds as if you've found a pretty honest estate agent there, but I'd get in quick. Once the ELL extension is finished and Peckham Rye is on the 'tube' map you can add, literally, a grand to the house prices. The only things you could possibly miss about Deptford are the Vietnamese cafes on the High Street and 'The Dog and Bell', but 'The Gowlett' is a pretty good substitute and there's a Vietnamese grocers around the corner if you fancy making your own 'pho'. And, as Katie says, we've got Khan's which is open late if you ever find yourself out of massive bottles of 'Dove' body-wash.

Oh it's a national obsession alright. Sometimes we eat them in a bread roll, which we call a 'sausage roll'. Other times we eat them wrapped in pastry, which we also call a 'sausage roll'. As you can imagine, this has led to so many hilarious misunderstandings that there's a long-running farce, starring Brian Rix, in the West End about it. It also has a vicar in it who, I expect, is played by Derek Nimmo. Also, we do have jello over here, but we call it jelly.

I do hope so. I've taken a spread at a tenner for every grand it is over ?100k.

Worker, It was my post you?re alluding to. I don?t have a problem with an extra crossing on Lordship Lane per se. My issue is with people who ask for cash machines on one side of a road because they can?t be arsed to use a crossing 40 yards away. When you?ve got people making this type of request, which suggests they need an instructional video called ?Remember: Pants First, Then Shoes? to help them get dressed in the morning, I think there?s a problem. That?s only exacerbated by the fact that they?re making the request of Southwark Council, an authority with a level of financial acuity which makes lottery-winning fatty Michael Carroll look like Warren Buffett. The result is that we spank over ?100k on a pair of crossings. One of which goes directly into a sodding phonebox.

Thanks James. It does pretty much on the first point. As for the schools, I was thinking more about training for the kids. I know it would be a central Government issue, but no 'Tufty Club' or 'Green Cross Man' visits anymore then?

Hi James, Maybe a bit off topic here but kind of related. There's a couple of threads about crossings where the argument seems to be about capital investment vs personal responsibility, so I've just got a couple of questions: 1) How much do Southwark pay for crossings on average? I've found information on other councils where the costs vary wildly from ?50k-?111k. 2) Is there a road safety programme in Southwark schools? If you don't know, I'd appreciate it if you could point me in the right direction. Cheers

I think you're being a bit tough on 'sweetgirl' there James. Surely training children to cross roads safely is in order to help overcome their inherent limitations? I was walking past as the ambulance arrived and the incident was within 50 yards of the crossing and between two parked vehicles, one of which was a Transit with blanked out windows. Whether a child can judge speeds above 20 mph, or not, is somewhat moot if they haven't been taught to use safe crossing areas in the first place. Just to add, the guy at the news-agent seemed to think it was an adult but either way it was a pretty ropey place to cross. There may be a case for crossing between Crystal Palace Road and Peckham Rye, especially since Tesco has opened, but I guess it's a question of priorities. I find the two fatalities at the junction of East Dulwich Road and Peckham Rye, where there are already crossings, of more concern.

Or we could all save ourselves a few quid and listen to Les Gray from Mud.

James B wrote: "I've had in the past requests to campaign for a cash machine on the eastern side because crossing the road is so awkward for so many people" Really? Did you receive these requests on April 1st? If someone is so preternaturally half-witted or staggeringly bone idle that they can't use the crossing at North Cross Road to get to the Post Office, Barclay's or HSBC I wonder how they've managed get through life, let alone open a bank account. To be honest, they should be made to play in the traffic until something hits them. On another thread you've quoted ?30k-?50k to do, frankly, a bit of rockery work on the Goose Green roundabout. I realise that you're not in favour of that particular scheme, but how much is it costing to move a tree and a phone box? Couldn't those expenses, at least, have been spared by putting the crossing a bit to the right or a bit to the left?

I saw a slug trying to sell a 'Big Issue' to a snail once.

How is it around children?

It's pure Christmas in Peckham Rye. If you're on a bus within a mile or so, I'd start walking.