languagelounger

Hallelujah, hallelujah, hall - e - - e- lu - jah, etc. Whoever managed to get this done, pls can they be made Prime Minister, without delay. Now can we have computerised diagnosis in doctor's waiting rooms, so you would fill out a multiple choice questionnaire during your 20 to 40 minute wait, which is then read by an OCR reader, so by the time people get in to see the doc, the doc has a list of things to follow up, which has drawn on all current medical knowledge (rather than just a combination of what they happen to remember that morning and how hacked off they were by the last patient they saw?) (This is relevant to the thread, it is another item from the list of obvious very useful things that could be done with technology).

I just caught the tail end of an interview on BBC R4 World Tonight with a chap whose name sounded like Gavin McKenna, sounded very impressive on this, considerably more to the point than either Cameron or Miliband, he said his org lacked funding.

Thanks very much for getting back on a Sunday morning, just about to be on the move but will list them to you later. I hope you did actually get the email we sent, apologies if not, the email had been hijacked and it took a while to realise this.

Hi I'm just looking for information from anyone who has may have had a similar experience, and if so, we would like to hear from them, and please get in touch by private message. Re: Email accounts used by people organising local activities hijacked/hacked recently, any other inappropriate behaviour that has caused you problems. We have been running for 3 years and we have reason to be concerned about this for the first time. Very specific request, thanks, and no reason why it would be of interest to anyone who would not fall under this specific request. Thanks.

Hello I'd be grateful to hear from anyone organising voluntary social activities or indeed commercial events around SE22, who has had recent experience of having their email accounts hacked? We have had two email accounts compromised in the past 10 days. I know it's quite common for email accounts to be compromised if you use public wifi but there may be specific local reasons for concern here, so I would like to hear from anyone who has had experienced the same thing, and especially if you have had any inappropriate behaviour targeted at your event/s at the same time. Many thanks.

Hello Adminstrator/EDF owners We emailed you for advice about some behaviour re the EDF which has been of concern. There are quite serious issues involved and would be grateful to hear. Thanks.

Dear Administrator/EDF Just to say that we have sent an email about some rather worrying behaviour we have experienced lately and would very much welcome your comments. Kind regards Language Lounge

The Co-op group has just announced that it has pulled all its advertising from the News of the World. The only supermarket to do so, it seems.

And should anyone be looking for a job: Refit and Tactical Marketing Recruiter Co-operative Food Location Manchester, Lancashire Salary ?34,182 - ?40,217 per annum Sector Retail - Other Retail Date 30 Jun Applications 14 Job ref no 20337616 PURPOSE OF ROLE To create and continually improve the customer targeted marketing support strategy aligned to the annual refit programme plan, competitor defence & ad hoc local marketing store requirements in order to maximise sales and footfall for all identified stores through collaboration of the wider business, and effective leadership of the Local Marketing team. KEY ACCOUNTABILITIES ? Identify and deliver a specific marketing strategy to support all stores undergoing refits which reflects customer needs / demographics in order to drive footfall & sales throughout the re-fit process and which delivers a strong ROI ? Identify and manage the competitive defence strategy and ad hoc marketing requirements necessary through collaboration and consultation with the wider business to ensure the correct decision is made in order to maximise retention of existing customer base and which supports local community brand strategy.] ote]

It's now possible to buy skimmed organic milk after 7pm in the L Lane Co-op. And the staff are as lovely and helpful as ever. The staff in the Brockley one are extra special helpful, have seen them run after a fraught mother who'd left a bag of shopping and also stay open after hours to help an older gent who needed to top up his electricity key meter.

Pls forgive my ignorance, perhaps the Councillor could answer this, but how are libraries currently funded? Which Council department or departments fund them and how are they categorised? Are they "leisure" or "education" or both?

All the local stores always sell out the semi skimmed organic within a few hours, leaving surplus full fat non-organic. Organic milk is delivered mid morning and sells out (semi skimmed first) by the afternoon, so unless you live like a 1950s housewife, you are never go to be able to buy milk. Can't they be bothered to adjust the stock, or isn't there enough semi skimmed organic milk being produced? This is not a trivial matter, it's about the Englishpersons ability to buy milk in the Co-op to put in their tea, and something should be done.

Plastic card. Not only are there are no medieval tokens, you don't even have to lick stamps. Although for some reason Co-op still cannot issue cards to people on the spot, like all the other shops. Do not quite understand either why Co-op doesn't adapt its stock more to suit the store locations...like all the other shops. Eg, on the Brockley Road, there's a (Budgens?) which is far more responsive to demand and which as a result, (ironically..is that the right word?) has a much wider variety of (self advertised anyway) fair trade, veggie, organic goods on sale. The neighbouring Co-op sticks to very narrow range, which you could understand if it meant that at least what they stocked was so tailored to their market that it always sold, but like the Forest Hill and Lordship Lane ones, this branch regularly runs out of essentials (milk! why no milk??) and has quite a lot of unsold sold-bys that it chucks out each day. And then there's the Co-op Chemist on Lordship Lane that is still stocked from the 1970s. Why would anyone so determinedly ignore a huge untapped customer base and leave local independents to stock ranges your natural Co-op friendly person would go for? Somebody did wonders reinvigorating the Co-op Bank so it's a shame they didn't get round to the rest of the Co-op bits.(Although the Co-op not the foreign payments outfit got missed for some reason...is still used by many NGOs out of principle, but again, is losing business from its natural constituency because it is soooo slow and out of date). (I would just like to apologise for having a bit of a rant there. I hope the East Dulwich Forum gets some kind of health promotion grant from the EU, for allowing one to vent virtually so that one can then be all sweetness and smiles in the actual Co-op at all times. Although not in Tesco. It would be wrong to smile in Tesco.)

I could swap you some sparrows for a blackbird that sings in the evening. By the way, if the very very big tree on the corner of Cheltenham Rd and Stuart Rd is definitely dead, and it's certainly not looking very lively, doesn't that make it likely to fall over? I only ask because Southwark took down a very tiny cherry tree here not long ago that was only 9ft tall, saying that the Tree Officer had said it was sick and hence likely to topple on someone. That one wouldn't have done a lot of damage. Do they still have a Tree Officer, or are citizens to be trained to shout "Timber" instead?

There is a blackbird here after all. But it leads the dawn chorus rather than singing in the evening. Do they often do that or is it just this bird that's a morning person? When we lived right on the A200, there were blackbirds that sang about 2.30am, presumably because it was the only time they could make themselves heard over the non-stop traffic, but this part of Nunhead is just about the quietest spot in inner London. While on nature notes, have just managed to notice, in mid June, that there's a huge tree at the junction of Stuart Rd and Cheltenham Rd that hasn't a single leaf on it. Is it dead, or just slow?

Garden has got more bird friendly, not less. Berries and everything. Still no blackbird song.

I don't live in the cemetery. I miss having my own blackbird and listening to its song develop over the years. Although I did notice on moving to London, that blackbirds down here are not one bit as musical as the ones up North. The last one I heard singing regularly was about three years ago and no other bird ever seemed to sing back so perhaps it just gave up. Very sad.

Please can we relocate one of your blackbirds to Nunhead then? Unless they have paid a lot for their nests over there and wouldn't be seen dead in Nunhead.

Can anyone explain why there are no blackbirds? It's so sad that there's no blackbird song in the summer evenings. Were some when we moved to London, then around our way it got patchy, one year a bird, next year silence. Nothing now but a bit of sparrow chatter and not much of that. Couldn't we import them from other parts of the country?

Explained by the BBC Money Programme in 2004 You're someone who maybe follows the news, but you weren't aware of the extent to which the mortgage and house markets have been skewed by fraud over the last decade. Not surprising, because it's been an example of a whole society deluding itself. Possibly the peak of madness was when the "Labour" Chancellor popped up at a City of London dinner congratulating the banks on the size of their bubble. "Non status" had been going strong for some time before it was covered on this rare occasion by the BBC. I remembered this precisely because of the silence elsewhere at the time, and everywhere afterwards. Not long before the crash, BBC news announced that if house prices continued at their current rates, etc etc, the average home would be worth 650,000 by, oh, was it 2011? They then gave about 5 mins to an estate agent and an investment banker to reassure us that yes, it was all real, and completely sustainable, just look at Iceland, etc, etc. Interesting point DJK, about a correction. I noticed the same people who kept telling us that the crash was coming, are now pointing out that several European countries are currently close to bankrupt, and that the correction has to come too.

Um, Alex, people on average and above average incomes in the UK cannot afford to buy a home (or increasingly even rent one). Unless they are subsidised by someone else (parents), which surely, in your language, makes them "undeserving", they have no chance of finding the ?60,000k plus deposit now needed even for a small flat. Before the crash, "non status" mortgages were becoming the most common type of house loan in the south east, even after earnings multiples had been upped to 5x. A "non status" mortgage was where no proof of income was required - and was provided through a mortgage broker, to protect "the venerable financial institutions" that ran this racket. That's the same banks/building societies that also owned the estate agencies selling the houses at ever increasing prices, that could only ever have been supported by "non status" mortgages, as there were never enough people actually earning the incomes needed. It was of course a criminal offence to borrow money on the basis of an invented income, or to induce an applicant to do this, and to provide it knowing that it was all a big lie. And then there was the government, which knowingly kept blowing the bubble. How many SE22 homes were bought on non status mortgages, provided by Northern Rock, Fred the superinjunctor et al, and are currently effectively paid for by the public money that bailed out the banks? How many des res ED dwellers paid their own way, and how many are "Bill Sikses" and "scroungers"? But then the balance between "fragrant" and "fraudulent" is still such an easy one to get right.

Hi Alex Reasons why a civilized country decided it could do better than private landlords: outside toilets rain dripping through the roof all night rising damp gas and electic pipes fitted by the unqualified no blacks, no Irish no women if we can help it. Reasons why it could have worked better than it has: corruption, corruption, corruption.

Very good point WoD. What seems unjustifiable about this, is that the Council says that is is selling off properties because they need major repairs, when those properties can be in perfectly habitable condition and have been recently occupied. E.g. Southwark sold a three bedroomed terrace house near here recently for ?319,000, after the long standing tenant died. It was perfectly sound but didn't have central heating and had (a completely usable) kitchen dating from the 1970s. It was bought by a developer who said he spent ?70,000 on it (including adding an extra floor, 2 bedrooms and a second bathroom, and one of those kitchens that's too shiny to cook in) and sold it after a few months for ?495,000. At the same time, isn't it the case that Southwark is still housing homeless families in bed and breakfast and short term private sector rented properties, at huge cost? Can the Councillor say why this is supposed to add up? Firstly, why does Southwark sell such properties at all, when a lot of families, including those not accepted on the housing list,and people living in other parts of the country with high unemployment, would be delighted to be offered a large habitable house on a quiet green road in London zone 2, just a few hundred yards from a school. Are they really saying that a homeless family, or a family needing to move to London for work, would turn down a house because it was heated by gas fires and an electric water heater, and didn't have a vanity kitchen? If so, I don't really see that they could be "homeless". Secondly, why is Southwark selling its properties at auction, where they sell for 20 to 30% less than via estate agents? Would they save a heap of money if the properties were just placed with local estate agents and the council hired a contract legal exec to do the conveyancing? At the time this house was sold I had friends in Newcastle hit by redundancy, he was offered a job here but there was no way they could afford to move, they couldn't even afford to split up their family and have him live in London during the week while still paying for the family home.

The service from Peckham Delivery office for parcels is at least as good, or even better,than comparable services from the private sector. It falls apart when they have to use casual staff, who do things like stuffing recorded delivery cards through the door without even bothering to knock, leaving parcels at other addresses in the street without permission, and even leaving parcels on the doorstep. It is defintely the casual staff in our case, not the regular employees, I have apoken with them on occasions when they have eg left parcels on the doorstep. Apparently these days the casual staff are engaged through external agencies, not by the RM itself? It occurs to me that perhaps someone should be going undercover in an employment agency, to find out exactly how much they do for their money. Do they offer training about who the postperson can leave parcels with, or even bother to check references or background?

Doh! Have just seen the answer, below. Pls excuse, I am a bit slow today. And yesterday, come to think of it. Then there was Monday, and yes, wasn't too sharp at the weekend either. Shoot me now.