RichH

Possibly the start of the Flood Management Project: https://www.southwark.gov.uk/environment/flood-risk-management/flood-management-projects?chapter=3#

Oh please stop proselytizing and stick within the confines of the actual topic. Your interminable sermons are very tiresome.

No, it's the cyclists who are pitching the pedestrians... off the pavement, where the cyclists shouldn't be! That is the point of this thread. Off course your blinkered perspective prevents you from being able to see that (or much else) given your obsession with defending the cycling cult above all else, it seems.

Were you perhaps thinking of a Kestrel, rather than a Kite?

South of Peckham Rye Park and North of Brenchley Gardens. Yes, they have shocking table manners! I was amazed that the hawk took a full 90 minutes to consume almost the entire pigeon. Only feathers and a couple of tiny bits of intestine remained. The hawk then stalked (i.e on foot) around the back garden, crawling under bushes and peering up into shrubbery, presumably looking for dessert, before flying off. Suprised it could take off after such a huge lunch! I guess it perhaps hadn't had a decent meal for a few days.

Easter Sunday lunch. Excellent... unless you're on the menu! Sparrow Hawk tucking into a delicious, plump-breasted pigeon.

Annoying isn't it! The below should work for Windows 11 and the latest Microsoft Office applications but it should help for earlier versions also. Firstly, other Users can be removed from Windows Settings > Accounts > Other Users. Next, before fiddling with OneDrive, back up your files first. Deleting items from OneDrive will likely delete locally stored versions too! You can uninstall Microsoft OneDrive from Windows Settings > Apps > Installed Apps. Find Microsoft OneDrive from the list, click the ellipsis next to the Microsoft OneDrive entry and select Uninstall. Or, as I did myself, you can keep OneDrive installed but get around the niggling problems by deselecting all folders/files that you're syncing to OneDrive but again, very importantly, make sure you backup all such folders/files somewhere else first as deleting items from OneDrive will likely also delete the copies you have stored locally. Next, sign out of OneDrive. Lastly, disable OneDrive from automatically starting when you switch on your computer. You can do this from Windows Settings > Apps > Startup, then move the little switch for Microsoft OneDrive to the Off position. If you're talking about the Save As location of MS Office documents defaulting to OneDrive, this can be changed within the settings for affected applications: In Word or Excel for example, click File on the top left of the Toolbar, then click Options at the bottom left of the next screen. An Options box for the application will open. Click Save and, on the right, you should find a check box saying Save to Computer by default. Select this then, in the field below, select a default file location. Third party applications may have a similar setting.

If you're using Windows you can use Microsoft's built-in Edge browser to add text and highlighting to PDF documents without the need to download or install anything else. Foxit, as suggested above, may be a good alternative but be aware that early versions of this application used to change file associations and document types in a rather devious way so that, even if you subsequently uninstalled Foxit and chose a different application, these wouldn't work as intended without editing the Registry to get rid of Foxit's meddling. This may not be true of online/recent versions.

One other thing to check is that, after fibre installation, BT doesn't double-bill you by charging you for the new connection and your old ADSL/copper connection (assuming that you don't wish to keep the latter active.) Also be aware that, should you cease the old ADSL service, you may also lose other services associated with it, such as phone landline connections and email addresses. Although my FTTP connection went fairly smoothly (despite some delays due to difficulties with the local topography) BT did get themselves into a bit of a pickle when it came to billing me the correct amount for the appropriate services. Thankfully this was all sorted with a single phone call.

Last year I watched a squirrel foraging in my back garden getting ever closer to a fox that was curled up nearby. The squirrel clearly had no idea that the fox was there. The fox, on the other hand, was very aware of the squirrel. The squirrel got to within about a foot of the fox before the latter struck... but the squirrel, with lightning fast reactions and an astonishing burst of speed, managed to escape by sprinting the twenty or so feet to the nearest tree and shooting up the trunk like a rocket. This was very unlike another scenario about six or seven years ago when a clearly sick and very disorientated squirrel was caught by a fox at around 2 O'Clock in the morning. A few days later I spotted another squirrel lying dead in the road outside. I'd guess that there was a disease of some sort spreading through the local squirrel population as there was certainly an over-abundance of them here at the time.

It depends entirely on your circumstances. After I switched to a smart water meter I paid about £5 per month for the first year as I had so much credit in hand based upon what Thames Water calculated I'd been (over)paying previously. I now still pay around £450 less per year than I was pre-smart meter. I requested my meter a couple of years ago and it was installed and activated about a week or so later.

I received a delivery yesterday afternoon. Yep, Sunday! I'm not critisising the delivery staff, but I bet they got paid "double/triple overtime" or somesuch for doing that. I'm guessing that this was a "strategic" delivery to show that deliveries are being made within a certain timeframe so RM can avoid penalties for service failures. The letters I received were recently sent. Meanwhile, I suspect that my overdue items likely still languish in a huge unsorted pile somewhere in the depths of Highshore Road.

I've been using the Cornell Lab "Bird ID" app since @MrsR suggested it in July. I must say that it has proven to be accurate and fast to correctly identify bird calls. So much so that I made a bit of a game out of it based on who could identify the bird call first; the app or me. Currently it's 11-8 in favour of the app 😞 However, in just one morning a couple of days ago two complete anomalies appeared in the app. A Black Redstart and a Spotted Flycatcher. Whilst not entirely impossible, I suspect the presence of these birds here to be extremely unlikely. Has anyone ever actaully seen either of these two birds in ED? Might the app be correct? Depending on your answers/observations I could be about to go another two goals down 🙂

All the commercial airliners you see (or hear!) flying low over ED are coming into land at either Heathrow or London City airports. As pointed out earlier, the City destined flights are lowest and take a wide route over ED towards NW London before banking and coming back Eastwards following the Thames over the city towards City Airport. The City flights are all smaller aircraft, no big 747's or A380's. I find that the City aircraft are much quieter than the Heathrow bound ones but it all depends on your precise location and your localised conditions... much like the perception of noise output from GALA! But, it's much quieter now than it used to be. No Concorde (the glorious roar from which I fondly miss) and no "Tridents" which I recall were especially noisy. There are no long, black jet exhaust trails either!

This was posted through my letterbox late last week. May not be a charity, as such, but could be of interest nevertheless.