At some point last night someone drove into the bookmaker’s next door. No idea whether it was an accident or a robbery. Didn’t wake either of us up. This morning the front of the shop was caved in and a Group 4 car was parked outside. Maybe Lettice will pop out later and take some photos.

The impact must have knocked the gate across the front of the passageway between our place and the bookies because I couldn’t unlock it this morning and had to walk the long way round.

Very True Mood:  shocked

So the Lambeth Borough web site is apparantly “one of the UK’s best”. So why is it so difficult to find out who was elected councillor in my ward yesterday?

From the home page I click on the link Borough Council election results that tells me who now controls the council (Labour, so I’ll expect a Counciil Tax rise next year) and then, For more information visit the elections page where in turn I can follow another link to Local election results 2006. Here I see the same information as two pages ago, plus For more details on the election download the document below which is a bloomin’ PDF containing scans of the paper copies of the returning officers’ declarations for each ward.

So full marks for making copies of the official historical documentation of the election available, but zero marks for enabling me to quickly find out who is actually representing me on the council.

Looking at the results for my ward I see that it went entirely by party lines. Three Labour councillors elected, then three Lib Dems, then the solitary Green knocking the three Tories into last place.

Very True Mood:  annoyed

Got an interesting bit of junk mail this morning (okay, not really interesting, but the only thing in the letter box of any sort). And after checking the small print to make sure it wasn’t sponsored by anyone I work for…

Discover Norwood

Norwood is one of South London’s better kept secrets. It is a pleasant blend of the leafy ease of Dulwich to the east and the multi-cultural vibrancy of Brixton to the north, yet with its own very distinctive character

This being a Lambeth Council production Norwood really means West Norwood (and Tulse Hill) ‘cos most of Upper Norwood (aka Crystal Palace) and all of South Norwood (aka a dump) are part of Croydon not Lambeth.

Best bit for me is this write up –

We are the newest ‘IT Thing’ thing to hit London. Included in our first London outlet is the ‘Internet Hub’. As well as this, we sell and service all manner of IT and computing products.

Um, no you don’t, ‘cos you still haven’t finished refitting the shop downstairs (for yes, these are our neighbours) and actually opened for business yet.

Ah, poor old West Norwood, I love you really but I just can’t stop taking the piss.

Very True Mood:  cynical

A reminder for people who know us in real life (and for nice people whom would like to know us in real life) tomorrow Lettice and I are having a bit of a delayed house warming day at our new(-ish) flat.

Come and marvel at views over south east London, gasp as the floor trembles when lorries drive past, ponder on how two people can generate so much mess.

There will be drink, food, dinosaurs and knitting. And lots and lots of wedding / honeymoon photos.

Saturday October 1st. 12 noon onwards, come early or late, come and go as you like, bring kids, bring booze, if the weather’s good bring maybe bring deckchairs.

E-mail one of us if you need directions.

… or another reason to hate Coldplay, as if one was needed.

Coldplay are playing a gig this evening. At Crystal Palace, on a Monday evening. Guess what the trains coming home from London Bridge were like today?

The Post, the free local paper that gets shoved through my letter box every week, contains an article about a rail users group who want the local train services to run with tube-like frequency. They seem to have overlooked the fact that most tube lines have very few branches and junctions whilst many different rail lines join together and use the same tracks in South London. The train operators showed admirable restraint when they said “it is difficult to say whether their demands are reasonable or unreasonable until we sit down and look at the timetable.”

Elsewhere in the article there was a survey of “almost 200 commuters” which found that:

• ninety-five per cent of them used the service four or five days a week

They’re commuters, of course they use the service four or five days a week!

• sixty-four per cent were dissatisfied with the service
• 98 per cent thought it was unreliable

In the spirit of Josh from The West Wing, taken literally that means that 34% think that the service is unreliable but are still satisfied with it.

Funny word isn’t it. Veritable. A sort of emphatic true. But if I’d called this blog Veritable Things it wouldn’t have had the same ring to it.

Anyway, there’s a banner up in the high street advertising a “Veritable French Market” that’s coming to “West - Norwood” (sic) tomorrow. I suppose that distinguishes it from all the “sort of, but not really” french markets?

That’s how the police “appeal for witnesses” board describes the lastest killing in West Norwood; though that rather po-faced languaged is somewhat undermined by the large MURDER at the top of the board.

This is, I think, the fourth murder in West Norwood in the six years I’ve lived here.