Gimme

Hope you don't mind lawboy but I passed this thread link to the manager responsible for parking at Southwark Council. He said - last time I sent him a photo of someone in his parking team parked outrageously - that he would be raising it with the contractor involved but that has obviously been ignored. Will pass on response if I get one.

What a bizarre thread this is. The OP's statement seems to be based on a total lack of evidence and sounds like pure crass conjecture. Were the people you encounted Polish? Were they really paid ?36 an hour? Did you ask where they were from before asking how much they were paid or is it all just made up? Why would they tell you anyway, even if you did meet these people. As a favour (not as a party member) I've been out delivering some Libdem leaflets in my local streets and I know that James Barber has been out delivering packs of leaflets to other volunteers too. Not saying that nobody else was paid to deliver them (as I wouldn't know and have no evidence one way or the other) but the OPs assertion certainly sounds like a load of rubbish based on what I know. Interestingly we've hardly had any Tory leaflets at all through the door so they either haven't got many volunteers or have given up on this constituency.

When can I put my little tomato plants outside? They were bought from ED Garden Centre and were outside there but not sure how to harden them before putting them into the planters. Any suggestions? Can I just stick them out now?

"A delicatessen that employs exceptionally surly staff + 500 cool points " This made me laugh. Reminded me that the staff in ED Deli pointedly hold onto the bag with your goodies in it until you have handed over your money (presumably because the price of the stuff in the bag makes it comparable to precious metals and you are therefore more likely to run off without paying). Superb! Great shop otherwise :-)

Welcome to ED Steve. ED Forum reflects the local community. Some people are lovely and some people are not. There is also a set who are seem to do nothing other than using EDF and they get annoyed by new people starting threads that only they know exist. I wouldnt worry about it, we've all done it. Just wait until you get the rough edge of the tongue from the likes of *bob*, eater81 or woofthedog. Then you'll really know you've arrived. BTW - hang out in Sainsburys long enough and you may bump into the Deputy Prime Minister. That's gotta trump James Nesbitt. But only for the next 5 days.... (she won't be Deputy Prime Minister in 6 days time)

How fabulous. Here's a chap who thinks someone incorrectly spelling his name is implausible. "Can you imagine my shock when I realised what had happened..... Nothing like this has ever happened before" ;-) Brendan Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Yeah they?ve proved a real asset lately. > > I?m not sure which is more implausible the fact > that you think that the entire financial services > industry is going to pack their bags and bugger > off overnight or the fact that you have spelt my > name with an ?o?.

Hmmmm..... Not convinced Huguenot(although have just had a few glasses of wine so your argument did sound somewhat convincing at first - you aren't David Cameron in disguise are you?). Think of it this way... if you can reasonably assume that the wind tends to blow in the same direction for a number of consecutive days in a row and that someone househunting would reasonably visit ED for 6 days on the trot, and that there are 9 days a month (30%) that are plane free, then.... the chances of those 6 visits being plane free are in fact 1 in 2.11 if the first day you visit ED is a plane free day and all 9 days in the month which have an easterly wind are consecutive. It is probably stating the obvious to point out that this probability is far lower than the 1 in 2300 chance that you suggested. If however, I would concede that if you visit once a month for 6 months then your calculation is probably right. But then how likely are you to visit once a month for 6 months when house hunting. Lies, damn lies and statistics eh. Huguenot Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Assured Gimme. > > But if we assume that the first time you visit a > house the probability of a plane free day was 30% > - or 0.3, then the probability of two plane free > days is 0.3 * 0.3 = 0.09 or one in eleven. > > After 7 iterations (visits) you end up with one in > 2,350 (well, not quite, I improved the odds to one > in 0.33 because of your original one third > assertion). > > This is so unlikely you'd have to assume that the > Estate Agent was only taking people to houses on > plane-free days. To do this they must either know > the weather in advance (which the Met Office > doesn't seem to do) or they make the bookings on > the day itself after checking the wind. > > If it's the latter they must guage their business > assuming that they only do business just over one > day a week, even though their business is mostly > on Saturdays - so maybe only one Saturday every > few months. > > As I said, it doesn't make sense.

The government is probably relying on RBS and Lloyds shareprice to cut the deficit. Lets face it... RBS paid ?70 billion for ABN Amro so if they can get that for RBS and Lloyds stakes then that's almost half the deficit sorted already!

"Can you clarify your point? You say you visited your house 6 or 7 times and there were no planes? (I should add that if planes land from the West, they take off over the East, and take-off is noisy too)" To clarify this point, when the planes take off over the East, they don't go over ED. The only flightpath over ED is a westbound landing path when the wind is blowing from the west or is less than 5mph (google 'the Cranford Agreement'). Apparently this means that the westbound landing path is used approximately 70% of the time and therefore that there are no planes over ED 30% of the time. The odds of there being no planes over ED on 6 or 7 visits would be dramatically less than 1 in 2000 or whatever, it would actually be fairly low since in theory there are no planes over ED 9 days in every month.

You wouldn't need legislation. E.g. The FSA could bring in regulations that state that anyone who works for a bank who is involved in proprietorial trading activities can be paid bonuses but they must paid in shares and are withheld for 3 to 5 years. This would disincentivise people from taking massive short term risks as any if the bets went wrong their shares would be worthless. At the same time, the authorities could force banks to carry the capital to cover all risk positions generated from derivatives to disincentivise them from holding the risk positions at all (as holding all that capital would be expensive in itself). This would leave most of the people who work in financial sector who aren't involved in proprietary risk activities unaffected and yet remove the primary causes of the financial meltdown of 2008. Brendan Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > You lost me at are. > > So how do you stop people being incentivised to > take massive risks with other people?s money? > > You would have to (quite rightly in my opinion) > legislate against it but then the whole city will > wail injustice and persecution.

Bonuses are just performance related pay. Salesmen get bonuses (it is just called commission). Not all performance related pay is bad, only when used to incentivise people to take massive risks. The reason the financial crisis happened is not because 300,000 people who work in the city get bonuses, but merely because a very small number of people (in certain functions within banks) were incentivised to expose their employers to massive amounts of risk for very large bonuses. The vast majority of people who work in most of the financial sector get bonuses as performance related pay for doing a good job (in advising people, in IT, in HR, in executing client orders) and not for taking risks. Removing bonuses in general would not resolve the banking crisis (although I'm sure it would make people who don't get them very happy indeed). But rethinking the way that bonus system works for those who are responsible for taking risk onto the balance sheet of banks would have a big impact on the future likelihood of a similar meltdown and some of the suggestions for deferred bonuses, paying in shares etc to disincentivise those people from taking the risks that have caused all the problems, are precisely for that purpose - if only the banks can be forced to apply these measures to their risk takers. A large chunk of the tax take in the UK was from having a competitive financial sector. Unfortunately a small number of reckless individuals spoilt that for everyone. The solution isn't trying to cripple the financial sector as a whole but to target those people who are taking on risk for high reward. And one final thing... the government is going to make an absolute fortune in years to come when the value of the 'toxic' assets held by the banks they own suddenly rises (as if by magic) and becomes worth a lot more than zero (as shown on the balance sheets of these banks). The reason that the assets are valued at zero is because nobody knows how to price them. Credit Suisse paid their top earners in shares in a toxic asset fund (supposedly a punishment). That toxic asset fund has gone up by 68% this year!!!

The mocking comments from the rogues gallery are a bit like the plane noise. Stick around long enough and you start to filter them out. I fully agree with a number of the posters re surprise at the aircraft noise. We visited ED loads before buying and never noticed the problem of aircraft thundering over until we moved in. But given that on 30% of days the planes land from the west (according to Heathrow statistics) and dont' go over ED, it isn't statistically that far fetched that you could visit ED 6 or 7 times and not see any planes at all. It's just one of these things. If you accept that you cant do anything about it, then you become less bothered and therefore start to notice them less. PandG Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Dan - thanks for your reply and comments - I must > say I was a bit suprised at some of the 'mocking' > responses - I thought, beforehand, that the ED > forum was for sensible debate - perhaps not!! > > Best wishes > > PandG > > PS - it isn't the one flight path into Heathrow or > City airport, naturally this was expected and > known about - it's when you get the Heathrow bound > plane and 30 seconds later a City airport bound > plane flies over at a much lower height - a double > dose it seems to us. Cest' la vie - we will > continue renting for a while longer and decide if > we like ED and its inhabitants!! I might check > other topics to see what the ED inteligencia say > there!!

You sound like gold dust to the diet industry giggirl. Wish I could eat more and lose weight!!! giggirl Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Huguenot Wrote: > -------------------------------------------------- > ----- > > > > Fat people are fat because they overeat and > don't > > get enough exercise. > > > > Not true at all. There are all kinds of wild > cards in there. I got fat through not eating > enough. I've always had a small appetite an I > seldom feel hungry. Weight started to pile on in > my late 30s. Earlier this year I went on a > special diet which meant I had to eat 5 times a > day (which was a struggle). I lost 2 stone in 7 > weeks and had to stop the diet because I was > loosing my curves (which I am fond of) and getting > too skinny. After I stopped the diet I quickly > reverted to my old habits of not eating and, guess > what, I gained weight. This week I've gone back > to eating 5 times a day and I've lost about 3lbs > (today is Thursday). I have an appointment with a > specialist next week to see how I can balance > things out going forwards. Oh, and I get plenty > of exercise. > > Completely untrue that fat people are fat because > they overeat and don't get enough exercise.

What they all said was miles away from the truth. Complex economic policy turns people off and impending tax rises and services would lose votes so we were stuck with arguments about minor tinkerings. People understand 'tax the rich' and think they understand 'fairness in the tax system' (i.e. tax someone else not me) so these things get repeated over and over. Lets face it, the truth is that tax will rise for 'ordinary people' under all three parties (probably VAT and other global taxes) for the simple reason that tax raising from the very richest doesn't bring in enough and only across the board taxes for the masses will bring in the tax needed to reduce the deficit. Or the other measure that we'll need - cuts in services. We got lots of talk about getting rid of jacuzzis in goverment offices, pay freezes for NHS managers and other efficiency savings but the only real way to make efficiency savings is freezing pay across public sector workers of all pay grades, cutting big defence projects and trimming the budgets for councils and other services. I.e. big and painful cuts that people wont like. So last nights debate was pointless. Nobody discussed the real issue - how to get the economy back on track - in any but the most superficial of terms. For the simple reason that they would lose votes if they told the truth. The real message from the debates (which we all got by the end of debate number 2) was: Brown - trust me, I am the experienced one and the other two couldn't manage the economy Cameron - we need change and I'm the guy for that Clegg - no, actually I represent change, not Cameron Only when we get the next government in power will we see what they were not saying in the debates.

Thanks Knowmester! Will try at the weekend - with some Curly Wurly chunks inserted!!!

They never mentioned the street stabbings or bike thefts either. Or the cost of organic veg!

That would be fantastic Sophie. I'd love to get my hands on a good brownie recipe. My mother in law occasionally makes amazing brownies but refuses to share the recipe - something to do with it being a family secret (although why she cant pass it down to her daughter I dont know!).

To be fair, although there is a bit of a problem with planes in ED, it isn't ALL the time. We got the same shock when we moved in 2 years ago (must have viewed on days when wind was blowing from the East - no Heathrow planes when that happens). The City planes aren't a constant problem, just an occasional one. But there are days when it is positively awful.... you sit in the garden with a Heathrow bound plane going overhead every 90 seconds. However, there are also days when the planes go over further north and it isn't nearly as bad. And East wind days when there are no Heathrow planes overhead! Woo hoo! I would have thought that ED would be a blessed relief from living in Fulham (where the flight paths are much more concentrated). One thing that made me feel a lot better about the whole situation was looking at the Heathrow website. There is a web tracker that shows how many planes fly over the whole of S London and not just ED. So we figured that wherever we lived in S London, Heathrow arrivals would be a problem (with one or two exceptions like Balham where we used to live and never got planes overhead). Made us feel a bit better and a bit less irritated about the whole thing. See http://www.heathrowairport.com/portal/site/heathrow/menuitem.f03e69d4cefdf3c524ba4a109328c1a0 for details.

And where do I buy these brownies???? They sound amazing!! sophiesofa Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Last week I cooked a lovely batch of brownies and > put some chopped up cadburys caramel bar in it - > absolutely amazing gooeyness, might try a curl > wurly in it next time.

Is size 16 really 'normal' these days? Or is it just a common size since we all started getting fatter? I'd have said that size 12 was a healthy size - not too fat, not too skinny. But if size 16 is normal then perhaps this is a sign of the times that we live in. Studies seem to show that the fatter everyone gets, the more being overweight becomes acceptable. The less people realise that they are medically overweight and the more acceptable people think being large is, the less incentive anyone has to try to become smaller even though it would be medically beneficial (although maybe the beneficial flip side to this is that there is also less pressure to diet put on young women).

James, Couldn't they build a primary school on the wasteland next to Dulwich Hospital. I'm sure Southwark Healthcare Trust could be persuaded to part with that cheaply if sufficient threat to budget applied ;-)

Depends where you live. We hardly hear honking from the house and only hear the occasional siren. You guys are obviously nearer a main road and not underneath the flightpath. If you live towards the bottom end of LL or near Goose Green on the SE15 side or between LL and Peckham Rye Park, you will hear the planes big time! Particularly when sitting in the garden. So if you honestly cant believe that people hear planes so much, you are somewhere else. Come visit on a cloudless day and believe.

Poor thing? Are you kidding? It's probably loving it's new life of freedom and hoping never to be captured and sent back to its caged existance!!!!

Latest news (on Sky News)... Airports will be allowed to operate 24h a day to clear flight backlog when British airspace opens tomorrow. So we are all going to pay a mighty price for the peace and quiet at the weekend. Stock up on your ear-plugs for all night 747 flights overhead for the next few weeks!!!

Sorry about your flight but the difference in noise is quite incredible and quite fabulous. Usually sitting in the garden on a sunny cloudless involves pauses in the conversation while 747s thunder overhead. Yesterday was bliss. Applespider Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Probably because the impact of no flights on the > economy and already shaky airline bottomlines, > combined with the ease of getting lots of lovely > footage of knackered people hanging around > airports plus lots of personal misery stories to > exploit and blame other countries for their > 'airside' woes is a much better media option than > someone getting a lie-in. > > I live under one of the flight paths crossing ED > but must have poorer hearing than I realised since > the noise from planes is far exceeded by traffic > and, aside from the fact that I was supposed to be > on a plane on Friday, I couldn't have told you > they weren't flying since here, at least, there's > no appreciable difference in background noise.