Lee Scoresby

Loz, the salt-cellar I remember little girls doing a lot in my NZ childhood in the 60s. Not sure they called it that, as we didn't call the salt dispenser a 'cellar', if you see what I mean. Thanx for showing me that page. All sorts of things: knuckle-bones, skipping rhymes, group songs/chants (the girls); model land-sailers, marbles, tops, rough games like King of Sinai (pronounced 'Kinga-see-nee') and 'He' (called 'It' here in England) (the boys) - pre-digital amusement, in the real, physical, gloriously grubby world. (Blimey o'reilly, I'm sounding like some reminiscent geriatric. Shoot me now.) Goosey, I am familiar with the Opies, also the work of Bruno Bettelheim. Many thanx for that. Sue, it was indeed more a teen than a child thing - which surely overlaps with 'new agey' - and it was about that time period. Lee S

I have always been interested in those terms, jokes and little games and phrases which spread among people, especially kids and adolescents, under the radar. Rock-paper-scissors, all of that. Right now, I'm trying to recall a sort of analysis game where 3 questions are asked. I remember one is: What kind of animal would you like to be? Another might be: What kind of animal do you think you are? The third might be a favourite colour. Something like that, don't recall - that's the point. According to this little piece of folk character divination, one can thereby deduce how the person seems, how they really are inside, something else . . . something like that. Can anyone remember? Feel free to raise any other little piece of kid's oral culture you know of. A warm little corner in a cold world. Lee Scoresby

Hello Admin, I've just tried first to repost a similar message - no luck - then to post it to you in this stream here - it won't do that, either LS

Hello administator - I tried to post a message for The Lounge. I was asking for help remembering something about a film. Why is it not being accepted? Am I being banned or something? Lee Scoresby

Thank you for your responses. I apologise if I'm repeating the subject of an earlier thread. Time marches on! The EDF grows ever larger. I'm interested that no-one responds to the matter of using one of THE fundamental road-safety icons, the speed roundel, within advertising. To me it is, as I said, grossly irresponsible. What I mean is this: the roundel was designed to be seen and taken in with as little cogntive work (ambiguity, delay) by the driver as possible. Now, if a driver sees this sign on what is mere Southwark puffery, should she or he think that the limit applies to that stretch of road? They will need to think about it. I do not claim it is a huge issue in THAT instance. It IS an enormous corruption of purpose in general terms - which is why even the Thatcherites in their pomp had to let it go. One of London's defining characteristics is that it has grown 'like topsy' - almost entirely from 1000 years of spec building, including streets and whole districts, spreading and spreading. Conurbated villages, as it is also often described. Which is surely very charming but gives rise to problems of easy movement round the whole. I myself think the great ones should have seized the nettle and built an arterial network in 1946 - and I mean in fact, not on a map. And before people start yelling about that, in other cities this sort of planned, functional separation allows precisely for safe, low-speed, no-through-traffic neighbourhoods. Some of the posted comments about the 'natural' speed limit, and the time taken to get anywhere, express the fact that we come up against this historical, horse-&-carriage layout. The point is to mitigate it, to overcome it as much as possible. I'm certainly not advocating bulldozing freeways thru in 2015. But there are solutions - which is why the time and money-wasting bad faith expressed by bogus 20mph zones makes me so angry. So I do not oppose the 20mph zone AS SUCH, just the pretend-implementations - what I have called, in other posts (about other things) the official culture of 'who's kidding who?' The point about the smoking ban, drink-drive laws, and the 30mph limit is that they have been ENFORCED (albeit imperfectly). The exchange between graces3 and StraferJack reflects what happens when a law is NOT enforced and, as a result, is held in wide contempt, becoming literally 'optional'. And indeed, kford, that certainly extends to rules about using digital devices on the move. As is widely recognised (including on this thread), traffic policing and enforcement have degenerated in our wacky capitalist paradise into a mere money-raising exercise. Blah blah, pace our earlier EDF discussion about the Rye path, I rejoice you now see the value of works which PRE-EMPT casualties. In a rational transport infrastructure, cyclists would have their own network - as in the Netherlands. I strongly believe it is long past time that cyclists were held to account for their riding. As it is, this is one of the many things the Met and other UK police forces have decided is not much to do with them. (On which list was also domestic violence, until recently). I believe, uncleglen, that what causes poorer fuel consumption and increased emissions is endless stopping and starting. Don't get ME started on the primitive state of traffic light technology and traffic flow management in London (on which I've posted before). But for sure, it would be good if the motor industry could start selling us appropriate urban vehicles, minimal and clean, rather than pandering to the open-road boy-racer impulse. And what is this general migration in recent years to huge, high 4WD/people movers? No-one can "drive well", in any reasonable definition of that expression, either intoxicated or speeding in a built-up area. The difference to an impacted human body (a precious human being) between differing speeds of the metal object which strikes it has been, I always thought, a very powerful point of consideration for thoughtful drivers. Indeed. But as some sort of yardstick for road-speed policy it strikes me as cold-blooded, actuarial and pessimistic: we must insist on a transport system which gives rise to no hurt or damage whatever. Pedestrians "taking risks" crossing roads needs a little context. Historically, people (like us all) lived much more outside, on the street, and many more human activities took place in that public space. The advent of the self-powered motor car in the late 19thc required a decades-long war by the police to clear that public space for the exclusive use of motor vehicles. So that we now think this is just 'what roads are for'. Part of a REAL re-consideration (a remembering, truely) of what roads are for (as distinct from this phoney 20mph carry-on) is precisely to say that not all roads are the same; that different roads can have different rules, governing different predominant uses. (Believe it or not, I ACHE for the day when I can post to the effect: 'Look, Southwark have done x! Isn't that great? Way ahead of the curve! Something to be proud of! Intelligent municipalism in action, right here in SE London!' I'm not a moaner or cynical by nature, and I'd be really happy to hear of any Southwark projects which other EDF'ers think deserve that positive gut response . . . ) Lee Scoresby

On Peckham Rye (Road), adjacent to the Rye, a banner has appeared which should put paid to any hope that there is some limit to Southwark's capacity for self-serving silliness . . . Way back at the height of Thatcherism, the idea was mooted by the swivel-eyed proponents of marketising everything that sponsors' names and logos, and other advertising, could be placed within public information signage of all sorts. With a few limited exceptions, this top-hole wizard wheeze was swiftly quashed, as the massive efficiency and safety implications became apparent to the public. Yet here we are in 2015, and Southwark Council has placed a 20mph roundel, a safety sign, within what is an advertising display. Utterly irresponsible. More yet. The campaign to which the self-congratulating penant refers, the gradual designation of every other street in Southwark as a 20mph zone, is in fact an utter fraud, and a reprehensible waste of public money. The facts are these: Most people drive responsibly. They also drive slightly too fast and carelessly at times. A minority of drivers is so immature, so reckless and anti-social, that, at the extreme, in the words of a safety expert I heard once, they simply should never be allowed to drive. How on earth do zones on maps and interacting electric signs begin to deal with this reality of urban traffic? It is an example of the long tendency of the UK establishment to take refuge in emptily symbolic solutions: a re-designation here, a line on a map there, a bit of PR puff sprayed over it all. The tendency to carelessness and speeding can be 'engineered out' by careful street works. The boy-racer minority will only ever respond to the overwhelming likelihood of being apprehended, charged and receiving meaningful punishment. Slower speeds in residential streets is a great idea - part of the process of taking them back, I would say. But where is the slightest hint of commitment from Southwark for solutions to make this possible? Apart from the measures I mention, many more side roads would need to be 'capped' to become cul-de-sacs. Whereas, apart from a few favoured cases, this council seems entirely happy that the borough is one enormous rat-run. If EDF readers want to see a bogus 20mph 'in inaction', proceed a little further up Peckham Rye, and see how much difference it makes to traffic in Cheltenham Road. And I'm sure we all know plenty of other examples all over East Dulwich. Lee Scoresby

To previous posters who say, People shouldn't be dirty and inconsiderate - I agree. We want to live in a society and a culture where people are considerate and mutually respectful. Most people actually are. But my attitude to this is identical, ceteris parabis, to the suggestion on another EDF thread that speeding bikes are OK round walkers, given (and I quote!) "a friendly tinkle". No! It is irrational to RELY on unfailing human virtue. We need hazards engineered out where possible, basic rules, and public services doing what they're supposed to do. On the ED Leisure Centre. Cold showers is an old-old gag there; one winter it was clear they were throwing the switch during the early evening, presumably to save a few bob on the lekky. There are plenty of truly hair-curling stories on the previously mentioned thread. Perhaps my favorite was the visit by the 'excluded' boys school resulting in a wholesale breaking into and ransacking of lockers. The response from Fusion: Nothing to do with us, mate. Thanks for the quote, Bic Basher. Much more digging needed - anyone in a position to? They're a charity, big deal. So is Eton - the toff factory, and preferred educator to Russian mafia offspring. Under the UK's nod-&-a-wink governance, 'charitable' is little more than a favorable tax status. Nor do I buy 'voluntary' this and that. And anyway, so what? We want decent services. End of story. My suspicion is that Southwark officers supposedly overseeing this contractor (Fusion) have, long since, entirely succumbed to what is known as 'industry capture'. Two experiences: Every summer for some years (still? no idea) Fusion pulled the stunt of 'rationing' users of Peckham Pulse to one hour. You may think this is a good idea or not. Either way, it may well be illegal (breach of implied contract, for one thing); certainly Fusion had no (un-secret) authority to do it. And for sure, Fusion always kept it very quiet - right up til that moment when protesting families were hauled out of the pool. I myself was uncivilly thrown out of an otherwise solitary exercise lane after just 20 minutes - they couldn't even run their grotty little scam properly. I complained to Southwark several times, over months, about this. Each time the same response: Err yes, well, leave it with us. Nothing whatsoever changed. Utterly complicit. Second: A Fusion employee shouted abuse in my face and walked away laughing. (Unsure to this day whether he wasn't intoxicated or emotionally unwell.) Again, I complained to Southwark, emphasising that the behaviour had been extreme and unprovoked, and that this was a FORMAL complaint. After repeated enquiries over months I got back: Hmm, well, I think his manager spoke to him. Utterly complicit. So, to all those swivel-eyed ultra-free-marketeers out there: If you still think, in 2015, that outsourcing is so brilliant . . . Prove it! Make it work! A lousy quasi-privatised service is just as lousy as a lousy in-house one. Even on a theoretical basis, outsourcing only works if you properly oversee contractors, and take away their contracts when they fail. Duh. Indeed, Robert Poste's Child, how indeed to "challenge" Southwark. How to throw sunlight on the faceless-nameless ones and their grotty 'commercial' agreements. Hearing a peep from our stalwart ED tribunes would be a start, at least. Lee Scoresby

Just back from lunchtime lengths there. An experiment - I am sufficiently disgusted with Fusion that I have been swimming at Brixton LC for years now. What do we find? Overheated, soupy-dirty water, soused in chemicals to mask the fact. Lockers doorless. The changing room floor covered in muddy water. Cold showers - and a lady told me it was the same in there. Still no bather spin-dyer. The shenanigans go on. And on. Lee Scoresby

Several years ago, a 'heritage' grant was used to carry out works in Peckham Rye/Park. This included several new avenues of trees. I notice that the planted twin lines coming down from Colyton Road appear to be failing terribly, with half or more of the young trees dead, dying or removed. This contrasts with the avenue coming off Forest Hill Road (opposite Harris-the-Carpet-King's stalinist carbuncle /bodgy academy), whose constituent trees all seem to be doing well. The question there is why, at the road-end on one side, several plantings were located immediately under a large mature tree. It is not so evident now but in summer the effect is ridiculous. Dumb contract-fulfillment, or some sort of arbicultural experiment? Finally, late last year a mature tree was felled close to the east-side road running up the Rye, perhaps not uncoincidntally opposite the newish Astra Court development and its even newer neighbour. I do hope (I DO SINCERELY HOPE) that this not some compliant officer doing either the developer or some resident toff a favour by improving the view. Perhaps a FOPeRPer, or one of our stalwart tribunes, can supply some information? Lee Scoresby

I refer posters and readers to an EDF thread (begun by myself, tho this is not the point) several years ago, in which a very large number of ED residents shared disgust and outrage of Fusion's management of OUR local leisure centre. To my surprise, the thread ran and ran for months on page one. I have said in numerous posts to the EDF that it is well-well-WELL past time for Southwark Council to wake up, grow a pair, and review the stranglehold that Fusion has on its leisure provision. Someone pointed out in that previous thread that Fusion itself is a spinoff from Southwark, wangled by then-council officers. If anyone reading this has CONCRETE data regarding Fusion's origins and history, status, profits, executive salaries, and so on, I think we would all be interested. If you're reading this and agreeing, post in to say so. And I say once again to our busy and respected local councillors: take note. This cannot go on. Lee Scoresby

Ms Hamvas, thanx for that. We can now see the drainage trench following the curve round to the main system. And this was planned all along? Not decided hurriedly and recently? Well, whichever, it's all very good. Blah Blah, I am HUGELY pro-biking. I just don't buy the myth that bikes in motion can safely share 'people' spaces and pathways. (That's just special pleading from SUSTRANS, and complacency and stupidity from public authorities.) Loz, thanx for those stats. (INJURIES by cyclists on walkers would show much larger numbers.) Well, all injuries and fatal accidents are horrible. I wanted to convey to EDF'ers that the potential for injury is not delusional. I'm not trying to raise an anti-bike mob. It's all very well to say that, GENERALLY, bikes, dogs, or anything else aren't a menace in public parks. I ask anyone interested to go and look for themselves. You will see the point of my remarks: A downhill bike, carelessly or inexpertly handled, will build up considerable velocity on the improved surface and long straight incline. By the time it reached the bend, that bend will be more or less blind for the rider. Mine is a modest proposal (attention Councillors): Why not take the reasonable step of constructing a bike hump on the uphill side, to engineer-out that potential hazard, and make an accident that much less likely? There has been a long, sordid history in this country of so-called 'accident black spots'. Translated, road authorities traditionally wouldn't devote budget or effort to a dangerous area of road until at least one, and quite often several deaths and/or serious injuries had occurred. No, this isn't a main road, of course not. But the principle is the same. Any fair-minded observer can see the potential for an accident. We don't need to wait for it to happen. And please Ms Hamvas, you're OUR representatives to council officers and contractors, not THEIRS to us. Don't just relay their self-convenient line: 'No Time! No Money!' As I said previously, the reasonable definition of a works timeframe and budget must surely include all necessary elements. No, Blah Blah, I do not want to wager money on some poor person being injured or not by a hurtling bike. (Good grief!) And no, henryb, there's always rather too much RELIANCE on "the friendly tinkle" - human good intent and behaviour, basically. (A PS To Blah Blah: As I made clear, your view is certainly as valid as mine. What I do not accept is your saying we shouldn't be discussing this. You are not forced to participate. I am not remotely outraged. The happy fact that you have not yet been hit by a bike proves nothing much by itself. Let me concede your general point: People can and do complain too much about trivial things - the term 'first world problem' expresses this idea. I just don't agree that this is trivial. On the contrary. EDF'ers might be familiar with my challenging the system where a cotery of senior council officers and their pet circle of contractors decides what happens - in ED and Southwark, as thru the UK. This problem goes back at least to the 19thc. It still happens in 2015 because our local-democratic systems are deficient. (Sorry, Councillors). I myself believe that, in the 21stc, online forums like the EDF can and should be incorporated much more into local democracy and governance. So that, for example, any new smaller-scale public works might be 'published' online, accessibly, for scrutiny and comment. Then sunlight would fall upon the faceless-nameless ones.) Lee Scoresby

Well, Blah Blah, I don't usually waste time responding to demi-trolls, but really, you do what your forum handle sez 'on the tin'. Blah blah. I went to some effort to point out that this path was important for people both entering and traversing the park/rye. One can "go around" anything; so what? This slope and blind curve clearly combine to make inconsiderate downhill cycling potentially dangerous. I agree, and evidently others do too: there is a problem in the UK with urban culture and lagging regulation regarding speeding bikes in pedestrian spaces. Several walkers are killed every year by cycles - I have yet to hear of a similar injury caused purely by a dog in motion. The fact that the problem is widespread doesn't invalidate my particular concern here. I'm afraid in Blah Blah we see the return of the well-documented 'authoritarian personality' : Any demurral, any query can only be misplaced "outrage" and contemptible "moaning". We must all shut up and smile! Well, as I've said to other AP posters before, this is a forum, a platform of local inter-personal communication, democracy if you will. The post will run as long as people are interested, BB. I welcome your interventions, but please have something to say. I am disappointed at the silence, so far, from local councillors. Lee Scoresby

Day by day, the resurfaced path works its way down the hill. Since I raised the matter, nothing official has been done to provide an alternative route for walkers and cyclists. Probably for this reason, from the start people have simply pushed the barriers aside and are walking on all the new and transient surfaces of the path. So is this how it works? A nod and a wink? Strange way to do public works. My other point remains unanswered: What measures are planned to discourage cyclists hurtling down that long, straight, smoothly surfaced slope and belting round the blind bend at the bottom? Parents of small kids should think about this, as should dog walkers, and anyone else, including cyclists themselves who might be tredding their way up round the curve. No-one loves speed bumps, me included, but perhaps a well-marked bike hump is needed just at the uphill start of the bend. Silence on this from the nameless-faceless ones, naturally. Perhaps they would be willing to vouchsafe their thinking to our cheery tribunes, the local councillors? Lastly, in these rainsoaked days, significant amounts of water are predictably trapped on the uphill side of the path, near and around the bend, and then regularly spill across it, which spillage freezes as black ice in cold temperatures. And yet, there appears to be no preparation to provide appropriate drainage. This would require one, or more likely several small grated gullies or vertical gravel shafts, draining the short distance under the path, potentially right down to the stream. Hardly a major engineering project or a big budgetary item. Re your earlier post Ms Hamvas, to me "funds available" must mean a budget appropriate to all that is needed in a project: in this case, an alternative temporary pathway, an effective speed hump, and proper drainage. Lee Scoresby

Thanx for timely responses from the elected tribunes of the people, which are illuminating in their own way. The obvious (and cost-free) solution is that the two upper gates to PR Park itself are left open at night. As the work moves down, the gate adjacent to the depot would then be left open. This is far from perfect: some, women particularly, will not be comfortable walking even that stretch, which is not well lit and is obscured by foliage. FoPRP/nunhead_man: much as I respect the ongoing efforts of the 'FO-PERPers', a) it is a confusion of the early 21stc that information=solution, ipso facto. (Reminds me of an outraged response to one of my posts drawing attention to the abysmal 484 bus service. "But! But! There's an app . . . !" Which is great, but you can't ride an app.) And b) your passing reference to avoiding the poor surface of the existing path in hours of darkness is more revealing that you may have intended. In fact, tho the surface has been poor the lighting is not too bad. What you would have needed to do is to SLOW DOWN. The self-serving claim is made by part of the cycling movement (notably SUSTRANS) that walkers and cyclists can safely share pathways and other public spaces. This dangerous myth has been imbibed by local government officers, and indeed councillors. How will this play out on the new path? It doesn't really take any foresight to see that free-wheeling velocopedians will now hurtle down the new paved surface as fast as they can. A long slope, a straight path - irresistible. The area of real danger will be the blind curve at the bottom of the hill. Useless to imagine that Southwark park management have so much as considered this, let alone that they are intending to engineer-in any preventative safety strategy. To be crystal clear, I am utterly pro-cycle, but not at the expense of walking. My concern at this closure is as much about walkers (dog walkers being a prime example) accessing the Rye itself as cyclists riding through. Cyclists, after all, can find alternate routes. (It is a whimsical footnote that cycling is technically illegal in any Southwark park. Is that still the case?) Ms Hamvas, it is not my intention to have a pop at you, but your reference to 'raising points with Council officers' evokes an image of supplication in a darkened cave before anonymous high priests of the temple. Do any of these office-wallahs live anywhere near SE22/15? How was this decision arrived at? Whose space is it anyway? Time for the dog to stop letting itself be wagged by the tail. Lee Scoresby

It gives me no joy whatever to post once again in terms critical of Southwark's management of Peckham Rye. But really and truly, these faceless-nameless municipal somnambulents never change, never learn, never improve. For those unfamiliar with the top end of the Rye, a tree-lined path runs from the SE corner down to Straker's Road near the carkpark. This path acts as one of two entry-points into the park from that corner. It is also a heavily-used artery for walkers and cyclists between East Dulwich, coming from/ going to either the bottom of Barry Road, or where East Dulwich Road crosses the Rye ('Kings on the Rye' as was), across and up the hill to south Nunhead and beyond to Brockley. When the gate through the fence into PR park is closed, and this occurs early at this time of year, this path becomes the ONLY route and access at that corner. Now, the path is presently being resealed and otherwise improved - which is absolutely great (and about a decade overdue). But to do this, it has been completely closed, fenced off, without warning, and at greater length day by day. It is simply unacceptable that neither Southwark park management, nor its contractor (if there is one) has bothered to provide alternate access. This is necessary in January because the open ground is absolutely sodden. (In summer, one could simply walk or cycle across the grass). I suspect there are piles of plastic or similar snap-together duck-boards sitting in one or other Southwark depot, or available to hire. It just required the foresight, the responsiveness to people's needs, the project leadership, and the basic energy, to lay them down. Or to come up with another temporary paved way. As it is, I'm afraid this present nonsense conforms exactly to the old-old pattern of indifference to park users, and lack of imagination and effort. Lee Scoresby

RCH (for it is she), happy to namecheck you and more . . . "I'm not worthy, I'm not worthy" . . . Your post is utterly inspirational, thanx for that. Please start another thread - I for one, will be happy to get my head round the Southwark bumf and BS, and do some chilly, dank November legwork. Tho why Southwark isn't doing this, and keeping its data up to date . . ? - this is rather my point about local authorities, and those who scuttle along in 'em. Tweaking Unhappy Gingkos - saw them play Hammersmith in '91 - bit of a rubbish gig to be honest - Village Tree Pits were so much better . . . wodeva Trees in the Vil-AAAGE I don't myself care about - the bankers and poshies can fend for themselves, battling that estate. The Rye side I am interested in. About the big ol' Jubaea, sure it was consulted on, sure it was a good solution within the bogus parameters, sure good people were involved (they usually are). None of which changes my point or my mind. It would have been more sensible to re-engineer that entire junction and surround. 'Sightlines' I don't accept for a Noo-York minute: I have stood (for geological aeons) at most of the bus stops round here. The visibility or not of approaching buses is a matter of pure chance - I can't see that it ever enters TfL's calculations whatsoever. What TfL could do is complete its presently-random rollout of 'Countdown' signage instead of blythly assuming we all have iphone apps (the 2014 answer to every-little-ding/ding). And now, y'see, RCH, you refer to "fingers crossed" about tree-pit sizes, and this just presses my button to the max. Is the UK a democracy or is it not? Why must we be "optimistic", hoping, praying, pleading, lighting votive candles, self-flagellating, fasting, offering virgin sacrifices . . . in the hope for the 'right' outcome from some little nameless-faceless suits in a room somewhere, on a date unknown. This is the trap that local campaigners do leap into. It's medieval, it's the vile dictatorships of other, 'undeveloped' (hoho) parts of the world, it's the papal enclave of cardinals - what it AIN'T is democracy. Uncross fingers, GET ANGRY - DEMAND. These streets and spaces are ours, these lives are ours. 2 Qs: How do urban centres in other countries reconcile winter salting and roadside trees? And: why is it you, dear RCH, out remediating this problem rather than paid Southwark operatives? We come back to this same issue, over and over again. I do not despise your passion and energy, quite to the contrary; I do despise and despair of the lethargy and naysaying of 'our' institutions. Anyway, big respect again, sho dat, Lee Scoresby

Thanx for the positive responses. Please keep posting specific ED locations for planting or re-planting. Nigello asks, Whom to talk to? I did start this thread in response to Councillor Barber's call for suggestions in spending his 10K tree budget in the January-March period (brrr). So it would be useful if Cllr Barber could acknowledge these at some point. However and also . . . other fundamental issues have been raised: I caused upset by mocking the present planting at the GG roundabout, which replaces a crappier situation atop the hillock there, and which required the inevitable grinding campaign by local activists against the nameless-faceless ones who rule us. The tree is a Chilean wine palm (Jubaea chilensis) - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jubaea. And see some fine mature examples at Google Images. It can grow to 25m (over 80 feet). I have apologised (elsewhere) for the upset, but what do I take from this?: - Why in a properly-functioning democracy should any attempt to challenge, alter, prevent or initiate anything in one's 'hood require energetic and spirited locals (like Robin CH, also) to spend month after month battling the hostility, arrogance, secrecy, incompetence, laziness, undeclared agendas, and commercial self-interest of those who hold their positions supposedly in our name, and their contractors? Local democracy should be a real, active, in-built, fine-grained, day-to-day thing. Improvements should be collaborative, transparent, easy, and swift. Another example is cited by Intexas: husbandry (even pollarding) of urban trees is unavoidable, but why should these contractors be able to run amok, leaving rows of lollipop-trees (species name: The Insurers' Delight), without residents having a say? In the case Intexas cites, I would suggest undue concern by Southwark officers to Harris-the-Carpet-King and his burgeoning private empire of dodgy 'academies'. "Not a single leaf in your grounds? Certainly sir, certainly!" - sort of thing. - Apparently, visibility beyond the roundabout was crucial in choosing this species. But I disagree with my correspondent elsewhere, and edcam above: seeing BEYOND the central structure is just not an issue. Because a vehicle approaching the gyratory there slows and gives way. All the driver has to see clearly is traffic already circulating, as well as vehicles at or approaching the feed-in road to his or her right. Anyway, if traffic planners were that bothered about this, they could long-ago have lowered the base level of the central island. - Likewise, absence of leaf-drop or any need for husbandry favoured the palm. But again, to me, this is just municipal do-nothingness; a kind of defeatism. I actually think that whole junction needs improving. Perhaps I'll start a separate thread about this, if the hand-of-god-himself (AKA the moderator) will let me have 2 on the go. Intexas hints that the one-metre tree pit requirement is one of those innocent-seeming maximising requirements whose real aim is prohibitory. Mistrust between We, the People, and our 'masters', is pervasive, no? Urban trees do indeed require proper bedding and a simple watering system. But this 'pit' can then be covered, with a stoney mulch or even some sympathetic form of grill or paving. As Brits can discover when they walk the streets of cities in Europe and elsewhere, this is all perfectly possible without the hooha and neanderthalic-resistance that arises here in the UK. Lordship Lane, for example, actually has a very narrow pedestrian passage. Southwark relies (often unthinkingly in my view) on each commercial property there not enclosing its curtilage (the open land at the front which it owns). But for pity's sake, these things are entirely solvable: they just require energy, imagination, and public authorities willing (as so rarely in Britain) to advance the public interest rather than bowing to the commercial one. And don't even start me on dropped curbs . . . or 'zones of ambiguity' and all the box of toys that planners and traffic managers witlessly inflict on us in London. Forest Hill Road would certainly benefit from plantings. Not sure if Cllr Barber's purview (and budget) go onto Peckham Rye, but there are damaged, dead and removed trees there from the great works of several years ago, noticeably in the new avenues leading in from several gates. Being in series, the absence of a tree is very evident, like a tooth-gap in a mouth. More SPECIFIC locations? And do we have your ear, Cllr Barber? Lee Scoresby

(Apologies if this toe-treads another thread) In SE22 magazine Councillor Barber asks for ideas as to where to locate new saplings in the forthcoming cold planting season. The destruction of a money-puzzle in Crystal Palace Road (see that thread) reminds us that urban trees face enemies. Majorly, the reptilian-gnomes of probability-calculation employed by insurance companies. Risk, y'see, money. The dream world of insurers contains no trees and a lot of not-much else either. Bah! A good moment to recall Robin Crookshank Hilton's funding efforts in 2006: Year by year these trees are transforming Lordship Lane into a leafy boulevard. It was fabulous this long summer. [Good grief, I said something nice about a Tory.] So, new trees? Well, trees young and mature have been damaged and removed in Lordship Lane. On what basis was a plane tree removed from the front of what is now Gourmet Burgers some years ago? Was Southwark complicit? And did TfL (bringing you the cattle-trucking 484), who boast about their crack arborial trimming team, really have to remove that tree at the Ondine Rd stop? Whatever the truth, other LL sites simply need their lost trees replacing. And how about totally re-thinking the Goose Green roundabout? From its sad sub-Edwardian flummery to a number (how many?) of new trees. So that in a few years it becomes a sort of extension of the Goose Green canopy. Cars turning left from Grove Vale will, as it were, seem to cut through a corner of the copse. (Once told by a Southwark urban planning consultant [sic] that East Dulwichians would die at the burning barricades to the last yummy-mummy rather than seeing that roundabout altered. Which I never heard elsewhere. Common sense says its needs rethinking, probably slight re-shaping and downsizing. Anyway, another topic). Tree thoughts from other EDF'ers? Which will presumably assist James Barber. Lee Scoresby

Thanx miga - been a migrant a few times too. So I know that when you move countries something dies (no-one I tell ever gets this), and something goes along with you. So many ways to respond to what you say: Never felt like a kiwi as a boy, just a pakeha squatter. London? My Swedish pal used to quiver with excitement when he lived here: "All this busyness, and I'm PART of it!" Never felt that either. Not slagging London, it's most of what I know by now. I've self-educated and changed here. It's a megalopolis full of good things. But it's not my home. What I FEEL is not British but European. Nothing artificial about that to me. Home is the wide swathe between the Gaeltacht bogs and the ice-smoked far-off Urals. I'm a European: Pale-pinky skin. Longish nose. Single-figure percentage of Neanderthal DNA. Post-religious. Enlightenment values. Some post-colonial guilt. European. And most of all do I feel deeply at home in the south. Not that I am or want to be or can ever be Provencal or Portuguese or whatever. I'm not blind to the corruption, pollution, the small-mindedness, the ravages of tourism, the obscenity of drowning refugees. I just feel right there, it's a simple existential mammalian thing. A new language: a new experiential lens, a new mind (rather literally) - I know this. It makes endless delay worrisome. In a better parallel universe I headed there straight from university. By 2014 I have lived a life there. Little point in repining such things, true dat. Thing is, miga, for long, things move in me, the spring winding, waiting to be sprung. If I was 20 I would just jump - because what could really go wrong. I'm still brave enough to jump - with just a little circumspection. Hence this thread and my Q. Got to jump, but need to land well. Way-way-way too much talky-talk from me - I'm putting people off, for sure. I see old people on the street, on the bus. Stiff, stricken, struggling, unloved. I think, for myself: "Not in London - somewhere warmer, gentler". That's off in the future, but it's also a thought. Mortality intimates. Lee Scoresby

Love it - got our own 'escape to the sun' going here Temperature - no need for mutual flaming, y'all - people break into hot- and cold-weather tribes - then you can choose where on the scale you want to be - if you're a hotto (like me) you might go for all-year round warmth, with the price to pay of a summer month or 2 being way too hot - alternately, a definite cool winter (not too long) with less of a heat peak - sure, northern Iberia/ southern France do have COLD winters - also, uplands and hinterlands have a 'continental' climate, with marked day/ night and seasonal temperature swings, whereas the counter-balance of the sea, storing and releasing heat/ coolness, moderates the coast In fact, NZ extends across quite a latitude NS, so it gets colder at the bottom than the top - my distance from NZ (in every sense) isn't to do with temperature, it's to do with complacency, narrowness, sports-worship, isolation-weirdness, and my youthful ambition (as was, long ago)- wo-TEVA ???? (might call you Ezra, get me?), thanx for that thumbnail - corresponds to my impression - cheapish is good (heh-heh), surfing is todally fine - and within distance of the Alentejo and W. Algarve also - I love marmite, but may be less hooked on industrial foods (as they're called) than yer average brit - fish, veg, olive oil, I'm a Med diet cliche, me - learning the language? absolutely! - Russians, yeah, really don't want to slag off an entire nationality, but indeed, Cyprus is chokka with' em - and indeed, well, they are as they are MrBen, yeah, again that's my thought - the Aude Valley and Narbonne look great - (wasn't that where Godard's Pierrot le Fou ended up? - the Cote d'Azur maybe) - Languedoc-Roussillon (a region so great, it's got 6 syllables and a hyphen) - L-R has shown up quite a bit on those More4 'Escape' shows lately (= Medporn for sad types like me, I confess) The Kid (en espagnolly), you're right of course to be aware of the economy anywhere you think about moving to - but I'll make these points about the 'flakey' Argentine economy: 1) It's not like the euro-economy is unflakey - my Greek friend tells me about a huge new property tax there - half her annual salary, and she feels she got off lightly! - to me it's a prospective nightmare: to be in my cottage with a small but sufficient monthly income, then to be hit by a huge tax demand, 3 weeks to pay - apparently some expats are having to sell up (good luck with that) and leave 2) The Argentine economy may be flakey sometimes - but myself I love that Argentina stands up against the WB/ IMF/ Wall Street (who then conspire to weaken that economy, as a punishment and a warning to others) - compare and contrast: the public-school dritseks, spineless tossers, incompetents and corporate-whores who supposedly run this country - think I'm exaggerating? - check http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/nov/04/british-government-leading-gunpowder-plot-democracy-eu-us-trade - check http://www.wdm.org.uk/category/tags/agribusiness - this is Whitehall and Westminster for you 3) For me, moving south involves downsizing my personal economy - buying way less stuff (made of atoms) in favour of, to use the delightful Italian expression, 'immaterial production' (electrons if you will): ie encoded experience - streamed music and films and books, and the wunnerful-wunnerful worldwide web - not to mention being content with everyday life rather than having to CONSUME constantly to cheer oneself up (the best things in life might turn out to be free) - and then also buying cheaply, locally, simply - and bartering, y'know? Jessie, thanx, that's a really nice thing to say - in fact, I trained myself up on Wordpress earlier this year . . . and haven't kicked off el bloggo since - hmm - one thread of it was/is going to be my move southwards And indeed, this has become too-too bloggish - sorry, all. But. So. Down South, where else are the good people at? Lee Scoresby

Wow, early responders - great, thanx "Street jive"? Moi? Innit tho, geez - I have no idea what you're - yeh, woddeva Mr ?, tell my WHY about Cadiz, what exactly - it is on le radar To be clear MrB, not thinking of jumping back and forth - I agree, it probably doesn't work - maybe splitting the year, at most - but basically JUST JUMPING - tho a broom cupboard to call one's own in the UK + a SqueezyJet timetable, just to get back here de temps en temps, y'feel me, blood? [enuf street jive now - ed] Pibe, very interesting answer - coz they do say Argentines think they're part of Europe (certainly not Latin America), so - and yeah, I always got a good sense about BA - but, y'know, I grew up in NZ (classified datum about me), which in those days thought it was just off the coast of dear old Blighty - and I've got a bit of a block about returning to the southern hemisphere, stoopid I know it And further to my original: 1. Age - is not an issue either - old people can be fantastic in the richness of their self-realisation - but if you were a small-mind all your life, that's how you'll be at 70 - young people: are energising, challenging, generous, all of that - and they can also be tedious in their noisy self-fixations (don't let them know, little poppits) - so - 2. La mare, the sea, the sea - I grew up beside the sea and have missed it for all my long-long London sojourn - but every man and his dawg wants to be shoreside - so most of the the monstrous concrete construction is there - so maybe a compromiso 3. I have in mind a smaller settlement - a small quiet city at the largest outside, on the edge of Let the dreaming continue - Lee Scoresby

Here's a sun-drenched thought experiment - you're late-middle-aged, say, you've always wanted to live on or near the great mother, the Mediterranean Sea (with a generous definition that stretches from the French Basque country and the Canaries right over to Cyprus) - not retire exactly, just do something else, 'wake up happy' as the slogan sez Setting aside all practical issues of prices, links, bureaucracy, language etc etc etc - you want to be somewhere with a real communal buzz: intellectual (maybe a smaller university town?), artistic/crafty, alternative (not that you're an aging hippy, but yoga and meditation in the area would be absolutely fine) - you don't want to end up in glorious little-brit isolation (like some participants in those property hunting shows seems to crave), nor in some little Anglo enclave, nor with snobs or bores of any type, class or nationality A lot of people move south, and clearly some self-clustering goes on (as well as random sprinkling no doubt) - purely as an example: one part of northern Corfu (Kerkyra) is real snotty South-Ken, another part is getting very alternative So, any thoughts? any insights? - please don't shoot me down on this, I'm just lettin' the bird fly, y'know? Lee Scoresby

A 24-yo female relative has multiple health issues. Faced with a scandalous 10-year-long failure by the NHS to help her properly, and the sky-high cost of private health services in the UK, she and we are trying to find these in mainland Europe. Dentistry in Hungary is supposed to be high-quality and cheap, for example. East Dulwich, I am now looking to 'crowd wisdom and experience' (and compassion). That is: any word-of-mouth info at all on this. Are there specific websites? Do you have feedback, good or bad, relating to the areas below? Psychotherapy (in English) Dentistry Post-stroke brain 're-training' Physiotherapy Skin treatments This is an unhappy and serious matter, and we will appreciate any bona fides help that anyone can give. I am happy to communicate by PM where this is appropriate. Many thanks. Lee Scoresby

Some weeks ago I drew attention on the EDF to the fact that during summer weekends the Kings-on-the-Rye (as it was) to Solomon's Passage pathway diagonally across the Rye is blockaded by not one but several cricket games. Well, it still is - right at this moment, as I write. The good Councillor Hamvas's "enquiries" have evidently come to nothing at all. And no, sporty-apologist fibbers, that certainly is NOT a soft tennis ball they're using. I guess someone will have to be serious hurt, and then, THEN! we'll see municipal jobsworths scuttle-scuttle-scuttling to cover-up their inaction. Or, OR (how about this) Southwark officials could get off their chuffs NOW and stop this hazardous abuse of public space occurring. Most certainly arrange for these gentlemen to use the soon-to-open cricketing space - but if they refuse, the Met needs to get involved. Simple as. Safe movement in public spaces is a basic right. Lee Scoresby

'Another' means me too SJ, but that's OK, it's all good. We got fings t'say, innit? Warmest, LS