things I dislike about modern East Dulwich

[Parker's Folly]

Louisa Wrote:

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> I find most of the parents I am refering to as

> annoying, obnoxious, arrogant, misguided and rude.

> Most of these people who I refer to as

> "three-wheeler buggy" types, tend to think they

> are the only people in the world with children,

> and therefore have some sort of right to just

> blindly force people into the road because they

> chose to procreate and take the result of this

> event out in some monstrocity of a luxury fashion

> accessory. I think they choose to come out at the

> most inappropraite times of the day, and they

> usually allow some of their tots (these people

> tend to have multiple numbers of kids) to walk

> along without any sort of support, so the child

> can freely wander in any direction.

>

> Children should be seen and not heard, and when

> they are heard told to shut up.. Equally 'yummy

> mummy' *type* parents, should be aware that they

> are not the only people who want to go out

> shopping, especially at WEEKENDS, should therefore

> have a little bit more understanding of others.

> ;-)

Louisa, I am sure you are talkng partly tongue in cheek here ( I hope), but if not, you are one seriously scary woman! I would run a mile in the opposite direction if I encountered you on the streets of Dulwich! (!)

[Louisa]

Well luckily for you capt_birdseye there are very few chavs and or cockneys in this area now, they seem to have been outpriced by the yummy brigade - so the chances of that happening to you are pretty rare.. As for the use of a stereotype, well strertypes would not exist if they held no truth, so I dont see a problem in using them to make a point. As I have already stated, this sort of thing happens to me a lot in ED, and yet when I am in areas like Peckham or Lewisham it very rarely happens, hence use of the stereotype on these three-wheeled-buggy-more-money-than-sense types.

[*Bob*]

The 'yummies' in question probably caught sight of Louisa, her crimson face contorted with rage.. and hurried on past.

[Louisa]

Parker's Folly, you already have and I look forward to the next time ;-)

[Huguenot]

Technically a three wheeled pram is by far a better engineering solution than a four wheeled one: in terms of footprint, stability, manoeuverability and avoiding annoying rattles. I struggle to believe that people would prefer to have four wheeled ones?

Is this a baby thing, not a pram thing?

Or is this because it's only the wealthy and priveleged amongst us that have the wit to recognise their superior features ;-)

[Jessie]

Even as a mum pushing a buggy I've let other mums (and dads actually) go first past me on the street, and haven't even been honoured with a smile, thank you or whatever. It is incredibly rude, but is not just an East Dulwich thing. Seems to me to be a London thing. Now back as a full time commuter I'm amazed by how people just lack in basic grace, always in a rush to be first through the ticket barriers etc. Truly find it bizarre.

[*Bob*]

Louisa Wrote:

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As for the use of a stereotype, well

> strertypes would not exist if they held no truth,

> so I dont see a problem in using them to make a

> point.

Indeed - same goes for the stereotype of the grumpy, miserable old git:))

[rob]

Erm, it seems fairly obvious to me that "Louisa" is a construct designed to rattle the cages of certain people on this board And she does it very well! I wouldn't let "her" worry you too much...

[Louisa]

Huguenot - The poor folk are a little stupid, perhaps you could give them a pearl of wisdom by having a yummy versus poor person buggy race up in ED park.. I'm sure the yummies would triumph, after all, they know best! :)

[Huguenot]

I ask, because having now patented the all new 'Jet Pram' I may have ill considered the state of the market...

 

[capt_birdseye]

Despite there being so few of them Louisa they still manage to:

- Spit strawberry milk on my car door

- Throw water-ballons through my open windows

- Throw fizzy cans at my front window

- Knock empty boxes from my neighbour's front garden into the street

- Cycle deliberately slowly in front of cars in the middle of the road on Lordship Lane

- Swear at random passers-by

All incidents I have been subjected to/witnessed in the last couple of years. I would gladly swap all of these with you in return for a so-called Yummy Mummy not thanking me in the street.

[Louisa]

rob how on earth do you know who or what I am? lol.. please elaborate further, you obviously know something no one else does ;-)

[Administrator]

Please keep this on the topic of "things I dislike about modern East Dulwich"

If you want to chat between yourselves please do so in the Lounge

[rob]

no need to elaborate - you do all the work yourself! It's fantastic, really! I expect to see the EDlouisa blog referenced in mediaguardian any day now.

x

[Louisa]

capt_birdseye I thought you had "righly" chosen not to take the stereotype route earlier! Anyhow, well done, you've shown me exactly what the issue is round here, those pesky working class mcockney buggers! I knew it all the long.. with their bags full of frozen food from Iceland and their common cheap clothing from Primark in Peckham... It's amazing, but once someone points out a stereotype, it all becomes clear what the problem is!! :)

[bawdy-nan]

Louisa - I don't know when you go to Peckham but whenever I do I get jostled good and proper. Not necessarily only by buggies but certainly by everything and everyone else. Same is true there of the roads. My excellent driving instructor takes me there to practice because it is so mad and I get to develop "hazard awareness":))

The thing is that the 3 wheeled buggies are much easier to push and don't fall backwards when you try to load shopping onto it. We've had a few buggies in our time and the one that served us best and longest was a second hand 3 wheeler from ebay (bottom of the range from mothercare but very sturdy). The cheaper maclaren types just got knackered really quickly - probably because we used them all the time.

I can see how its very annoying to be bashed out the way and ignored. Sometimes people with very young children are utterly knackered and distracted, so it may be that rather than sheer bloody-mindedness. Then again, lots of people are very rude. I often see groups of people pushing their way in front of people with buggies or older people to get their place on the bus.

Oddly, although it doesn't feel like it, East Dulwich doesn't have proportionally more kids than Southwark or London. I;ve just been looking at some data-sets from the last census. It might be out of date now and there may have been an extraordinary baby-boom but roughly 6.5% of the ED population is 4 or under (any older and they really shouldn't be in a buggy in my old-fashioned "make-em walk" humble opinion.)

There does seem to be some very anti-child feeling around. Its as if people feel that they aren't really human or part of our society.

[Mark]

... I also don't think the pavement's wide enough on Lordship Lane for the traffic that's now on it

... I don't like the fact there's no Welcome to East Dulwich sign/statue/statement

(but I do like the fact that in the wider scope of things our dislikes are fairly small, we could be saying "..there's too many shootings in SE22" or " ... I don't like that leaking nuclear reactor up on the hill" or similar)

[Louisa]

lol you dont have to go too far if you fancy a western-saloon style shoot up Mark.. Camberwell and Peckham is just a mile or two down the road ;-)

[capt_birdseye]

Fair enough Louisa, I've fallen into the trap of lazy stereotyping. The incidents I mentioned involved bored, local youths who didn't have home counties accents. Salt of the earth types I'm sure. ;-)

[Alan Dale]

removed

[Louisa]

Alan "because mum's are heroes" I wont need to worry - I can hop on the back of a three-wheeled buggy and hide under the hood from the bullets - perhaps i'll make it back to ED in one piece with my arctic roll intact!

[Peckham native]

Louisa Wrote:

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> bawdy I just get rather angry with the way people

> seem to have lost the ability to think about

> others and just selfishly act without thinking.

> The number of times I have seen parents who just

> completely ignore people in and around ED, almost

> as if they dont actually exist! I have even

> stepped aside once or twice to be nice to these

> people, and these two yummy types were walking

> along talking to one another in that rather

> annoying home counties way, and they completely

> ignored the fact I had stopped to let them pass...

> They even saw me and looked directly at me.. Now

> this sort of thing seems to happen more often than

> not to me, and I just find it really bloody rude..

I have to agree with Louisa here. I have no problem with Mums with kids or Dads with kids or even Mums & Dads with kids. BUT I have noticed a particular type of parent with child in the E Dulwich area that seem to have a total disdain for all other pavement users. They either motor up Lordship Lane at full speed and expect everyone to get out of their way or they stop & talk to their friends and block all routes.

I actually had to ask more than once for a particular group having a Sunday morning chat to slightly move one of their buggies so that I could pass. They looked at me as though I was being terribly rude for intruding into their conversation. I thought it was only me that had encountered this attitude but when I mentioned it to other friends they had similar experiences.

[louisiana]

The scariest thing I've come across on LL was two teenage girls with a large and ugly-looking (think fighting) dog on a Saturday morning. They were trawling the entire east side of LL, threatening people - in the usual 'disrepect' style. Having been attacked (and hospitalised) by dogs, this was no joke for me.

This kind of thing got going here and elsewhere in the late 80s (there used to be a lot of it about on Peckham Rye, before the legislation), and hasn't gone away.

[James]

All this chav-baiting (I admit, I have been doing it too) made me feel like shattering a few stereotypes...

True story

A few weeks ago we were awoken in the small hours to hear intruders in the bulding site next to our flat. We saw several hoodie-clad figures shining torches on neighbouring houses & clambouring about looking suspicious.

We called the police, who apprehended them. They turned out to be middle-class indie kids resembling the front row of a Muse concert. Apparently they had dared each other to do pull-ups on the building site after a night of drinking. I hope mummy will keep her sherry safely locked away in future.

[vicksg]

I love East Dulwich and am happy to say it's only small things that annoy me:

The scruffiness of the lower part of Lordship Lane near Goose Green

Shop staff who don't greet you or even look at you, let alone thank you. (but that's UK wide, not just ED)

Over-priced shops. I love the variety of shops in East Dulwich but not the prices of many of them. Mind you, I'm from Brighton originally and it's just as bad there so maybe I just haven't got the hang of inflation!

The snobbery and lack of tolerance displayed by people who live in East Dulwich, towards those who live in the Village or West Dulwich. I live in West Dulwich but spend probably a third of my time in the village, a third in West D and a third in East D. And I love them all, for different reasons. God forbid everywhere should become the same.

On that last point - I was guilty of the same stereotyping of people who live in the village before I moved here so (like a reformed smoker) I notice it even more now.

But to reiterate - ED rules!