EKB2

Thanks for the tips - suddenly I see that bedbugs are a hot news item, one of the most read articles last week in Guardian online 'Bedbugs make a return via low-cost flights'. Probably loads of houses have them but only some of us get bitten!! I appreciate the comment that you don't have to live in a tip to get infested, but it's all making me think I could be a bit sharper about house cleaning, and maybe stop blaming everything on cats or pigeons. EKB

Finally I have hope that I'm not, after all, suffering from psychosomatic insect bites or a curious allergic reaction to nothing in particular, at least not anything apparent. I hope we have bed bugs. According to the internet they have really taken off in the last few years, but not a lot of people know about them because you never see them and they only feed every few weeks. One site says SE22 is a current hot (?) spot. Can anyone out there advise on what to do or who to turn to to get rid of them? Is there shame in bed bugs? Does anyone else get bitten or is it just me? Might giant rabbits be responsible for this too? EKB

Why shouldn't we compare Alleyns with a Harris Academy? This country loses a lot because we don't think to make that comparison. The only ones who benefit from the way things are, are the dimmer rich kids and their parents. (Yeuch, just realised I'm in that category) I'm livid about the decision because I think it's yet another instance of teenagers, who are given so little decent space - both literally and metaphorically - being betrayed or 'failed' by the rest of us. Seems like a pathetic political system that gives them nothing better than a so-called choice between being cooped up on that site and commuting miles away. Surely we can do better. And I really can't see that 950, even 750, on that site has any hope of becoming a good school. National government, Southwark council and the Harris Federation all say they're confident that they can deliver. Well they would! I'd like to see evidence from a disinterested party that persuades me that the cramped and harsh urban schools that have sprung up in the last few years, and that seem to be the justification for doing it here too, aren't going to be a long-term disaster. I say, let's not give up on getting the council to drop the numbers. That way we'll get better teachers, more outdoor space (less car parking for the staff!) and, I'm sure, happier kids and happier neighbours. Oh yes, and they do say a prerequisite for a good school is a good relationship with the community. Great start: 112 or something responsese to the planning department opposing, 16 or something in favour. EKB2

Muttley, I agree. What does it say to a teenager to know that he's studying in a 'specialist' school that doesn't even have the facilities for its specialism, sports!!! And I agree with that the injustice of the Alleyns and the Dulwich Colleges down the road are a huge, huge factor in why this is so upsetting to me. It both breaks my heart and infuriates me to think that anyone can really, truly, justify this kind of inequality in my life time. What's perhaps most sickening, is the idea that the school, otherwise showing all the characteristics of one destined to fail, is supposed to be saved from this fate by a 'strong ethos' and a micromanagement scheme that promises to have all the hallmarks of military discipline. How vulnerable is that in the long run! And how can all the professional judgements of people involved - architects, planners, transport experts, not to mention teachers - and the vast majority of those of us who responded with a 'no thank you' to THIS school, though making it clear we want A school... how can all that have been so spectacularly ignored. Shame on those promoting this! Yes to a good, up-to-date school. No to this idiocy. Suggesting the 'choice' between this and nothing is probably an insult, possibly a joke. EKB2

Well ED, let?s get ready for more educational nightmares as the new Harris school/academy at the Peckham Rye end of Friern Road goes ahead. It's about to be put forward to the Council?s Planning Committee next week (Ref. 08-AP-0790 if you want to find it on www.southwark.gov.uk). A few weeks ago I objected to the plans for a second time. Basically, we are being given a ?choice? of no school or a boys? Academy, including 6th form, twinned with the Girls? School at the top of the hill, to house 950 pupils on a tiny site that?s not had more than 350 in the past. The application says the site is 0.72ha, just within legal limits (950 pupils require an absolute minimum of 0.66ha). Actually, I remember it being even smaller - perhaps they found some left-over space somewhere. Maybe I just remembered wrong. Anyway, of the neighbours consulted, 21 supported, 116 objected. So, the community has been listened to. And the school will go ahead (maybe - apparently it's notorious in architectural circles for its bad design.) I thought the visual side of the school was kind of OK. But to accommodate that number kids will be ?managed? to a strict timetable of rotating breaks and entry and exit times. Any behaviour problems will be dealt with by inculcating a strong ethos, whatever that means. There?ll be 30 car parking spaces ? locals won?t then need to worry about losing street parking. Shame the kids won?t have anywhere near the amount of outdoor space allocated as their luckier peers down the road at Dulwich College or Alleyns etc, and shame that boys in a sports specialism school (I am not kidding) will have to be bussed to the sports facilities because, obviously, there ain?t space on site. This whole saga makes me feel not just angry but powerless. I'd say this shows that parents aren't really in much of a position to affect anything. Not when local and national government (and the business elites to whom education, with most other things, has been handed) show this kind of disdain for young people and are so cavalier about 'consultation' and 'community ownership' of the project. But back to the point: 950 kids penned into that space. I just don't get it. How can it possibly fail to achieve 'special measures' at the earliest opportunity? Yours disgusted of ED, a.k.a. EKB2

Really interesting thread. To bring it back to ED and possibly to class - which actually does a lot to help explain why so much of England feels so different from so much of the rest of Europe - I wonder what terror laws combined with paranoia, plus the voluntary self-exclusion of the upper crust from humdrum daily life, is doing to us in different parts of London? Last summer I had to spend a bit of time around parts of East London like Bethnal Green and Canning Town that most people who read this probably only see from a moving train or car. The feel of being on a bus diverted by the police because of some road block or other interruption into the routine was almost exotic. (I'm a user of the 63 and the LL routes - are they OKish or is it just being familiar that makes them seem so?) The foul language and the obvious hostility towards the police who, apparently routinely, hassle people like this (the diverted/ snarled-up traffic etc) was an eye opener. Not quite sure into what, but somehow a lot of the issues that ya'll have picked up above were thrown in as I reflected on the weirdness of the world. And I didn't like it. I wish I knew what, politically and personally, would help. Help, that is, make everyday urban life feel a bit less coarse, a bit less exhausting. Meaningful jobs, well, jobs, for more of us? Shame about the recession I guess. EKB2

My hopes of substantive improvements to quality of life in London evaporated long before Boris as mayor could even be joked about, and definitely well before this afternoon when the pollution levels made me feel ill - again. So I was heartened by the news that not everyone has been reduced to apathy (or even desperate humour). Some Oxford citizens (among others) have taken to anarchist tactics to assert their continuing interest in civic engagement - painting ED's roads in lovely colours anyone? http://www.wormworks.com/roadwitch/index.html