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Brixton news, rumour and general chat - May 2014

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Just been out and about on my bike, first time this year. It's great exercise. I'm just having a light lunch of parma ham and goats cheese with cherry tomato baguette. (i made it myself, not the baguette). I've just dipped under the 13st (80 kilo) mark for the first time in six months. Love making is the best form of exercise. Spring is the best season.
 
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Dexter Deadwood said:
Just been out and about on my bike, first time this year. It's great exercise. I'm just having a light lunch of parma ham and goats cheese with cherry tomato baguette. (i made it myself, not the baguette). I've just dipped under the 13st (80 kilo) mark for the first time in six months. Love making is the best form of exercise. Spring is the best season.
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There are some nice smooth roads to cycle on in lambeth,A lot of freshly tarmacked streets are appearing and is a good thing if you cycle.
 
I can report that the Moroccan place on the corner of Brixton and Station Road does very nice falafals, especially if you ask for aubergine with it. I recall the 'no good place for falafals' discussion but these are homemade and tasty. I've been wanting to try their soups but the weather was too hot.

On my way down to Brixton this morning the baby and I crossed the road specifically to shout at the anti-abortion protesters outside the clinic. There were two police officers there and I asked them if what they were doing, turns out they were about to move the protesters along as they'd had a complaint about the distressing nature of their posters. I gave them my name and address as a formal complaint as well.
 
Mation said:
Tee-hee I forgot... Full marks to the guy I saw yesterday after work cycling through Brixton whilst juggling three tennis balls :D Is he a regular fixture?
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Often see people practising juggling (balls, bats, bottles etc) on the grass in Windrush sq, but never on bicycles, that sounds like impressive multitasking.
 
teuchter said:
I have seen exactly this, on Milkwood road, a few months ago. Whether it was the same guy I do not know.

I made sure that as he passed I appeared unfazed, as any good Londoner should
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Yep, neutral face here too :cool: Although I did cackle after he'd passed.

But can there really be two? :D
 
Last night around 2.30am I saw a rather strange sight. There were three blokes wearing reflective jackets with torches stuck on their heads walking fairly briskly along Coldharbour Lane. They each had a long stick in their hands and seemed to be staring down at various points of the pavement and giving it a poke, with their head torches illuminating a little circle of the ground. Occasionally one would get quite interested in a piece of pavement and give it extended pokes with the stick and then move on.

At first I thought it was cops looking for drugs - or maybe gas leak people - but the speed in which they were moving suggested that that was unlikely. Any one got any ideas?
 
Sewage workers, or contractors marking out points to dig in (or avoid digging over) for impending road works.
 
Urban adventure dowsers?

(more likely) Utility, or especially cable, workers planning out new routes of attack?

People from town planning dept of the council doing some sort of a study for roadworks?
 
editor said:
At first I thought it was cops looking for drugs - or maybe gas leak people - but the speed in which they were moving suggested that that was unlikely. Any one got any ideas?
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Almost certainly geophysics investigations of utility routes.
 
Winot said:
Sounds like a counsel of despair.
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Refusing to participate in a system that doesn't work for you isn't a counsel of despair, it's a rational decision, given that our "democracy" takes participation as acceptance of the status quo. Perhaps if there were a few more mechanisms through which the electorate could enforce the mandate our elected representatives lay claim to, then more people wouldn't refuse to participate, but as it is, what are you actually voting for, except to endorse someone's membership of a club and (if you're really lucky) their occasional being-arsed to do something for the people who elected them?
We exist in a political world where the difference between our main parties is thinner than a fag paper, and where the minority parties can rarely muster enough clout (exceptions like Brighton aside) to make a difference to the major-party hegemony.
 
ViolentPanda said:
We exist in a political world where the difference between our main parties is thinner than a fag paper, and where the minority parties can rarely muster enough clout (exceptions like Brighton aside) to make a difference to the major-party hegemony.
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The number of potential voters currently unregistered to vote has recently been estimated at 6 million. If all of those voted Green (to use your example), there would be quite a few Brightons.
 
nagapie said:
I can report that the Moroccan place on the corner of Brixton and Station Road does very nice falafals, especially if you ask for aubergine with it. I recall the 'no good place for falafals' discussion but these are homemade and tasty. I've been wanting to try their soups but the weather was too hot.

On my way down to Brixton this morning the baby and I crossed the road specifically to shout at the anti-abortion protesters outside the clinic. There were two police officers there and I asked them if what they were doing, turns out they were about to move the protesters along as they'd had a complaint about the distressing nature of their posters. I gave them my name and address as a formal complaint as well.
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I think I saw them setting up this morning. Poster still turned to the wall though at that stage. Strange and sad that people should expend so much time and energy judging others, and trying to make them miserable.
 
Winot said:
The number of potential voters currently unregistered to vote has recently been estimated at 6 million. If all of those voted Green (to use your example), there would be quite a few Brightons.
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I'm sure there would.
However, how do you convince those 6 million people spread around the UK to participate? If they vote Green, the party will still have to operate under the same strictures as the main parties, but without the same party support systems in place.
What's needed is a fundamental re-thinking of democracy, so that we actually have democracy, rather than democracy-flavoured neoliberal rule. Power should always be bottom up, not top-down, as our current system requires.
 
ViolentPanda said:
I'm sure there would.
However, how do you convince those 6 million people spread around the UK to participate? If they vote Green, the party will still have to operate under the same strictures as the main parties, but without the same party support systems in place.
What's needed is a fundamental re-thinking of democracy, so that we actually have democracy, rather than democracy-flavoured neoliberal rule. Power should always be bottom up, not top-down, as our current system requires.
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I don't disagree, I just don't think that not voting achieves anything.

What do you imagine is going to happen if turnout continues to fall? Do you think the political class is going to have a crisis of confidence and start paying attention to people's concerns? Bullshit - they will quite happily go on serving the needs of the few.
 
editor said:
Last night around 2.30am I saw a rather strange sight. There were three blokes wearing reflective jackets with torches stuck on their heads walking fairly briskly along Coldharbour Lane. They each had a long stick in their hands and seemed to be staring down at various points of the pavement and giving it a poke, with their head torches illuminating a little circle of the ground. Occasionally one would get quite interested in a piece of pavement and give it extended pokes with the stick and then move on.

At first I thought it was cops looking for drugs - or maybe gas leak people - but the speed in which they were moving suggested that that was unlikely. Any one got any ideas?
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Thames Water use detectors to listen for leaks at night when it is quieter. I saw them doing that outside my place at about 4am over winter - they dropped a spanner so I looked out to see what was going on.
I then watched one of them take a leak in my neighbours garden.
There was a leak in the pavement, as it turned out.
 
editor said:
Last night around 2.30am I saw a rather strange sight. There were three blokes wearing reflective jackets with torches stuck on their heads walking fairly briskly along Coldharbour Lane. They each had a long stick in their hands and seemed to be staring down at various points of the pavement and giving it a poke, with their head torches illuminating a little circle of the ground. Occasionally one would get quite interested in a piece of pavement and give it extended pokes with the stick and then move on.

At first I thought it was cops looking for drugs - or maybe gas leak people - but the speed in which they were moving suggested that that was unlikely. Any one got any ideas?
Click to expand...

I saw a guy doing this yesterday morning on Effra Road. He was cleaning out the small water stand pipe thingies
 
ViolentPanda said:
I'm sure there would.
However, how do you convince those 6 million people spread around the UK to participate? If they vote Green, the party will still have to operate under the same strictures as the main parties, but without the same party support systems in place.
What's needed is a fundamental re-thinking of democracy, so that we actually have democracy, rather than democracy-flavoured neoliberal rule. Power should always be bottom up, not top-down, as our current system requires.
Click to expand...

I have said it before: election by lot. like a jury system.
 
editor said:
Last night around 2.30am I saw a rather strange sight. There were three blokes wearing reflective jackets with torches stuck on their heads walking fairly briskly along Coldharbour Lane. They each had a long stick in their hands and seemed to be staring down at various points of the pavement and giving it a poke, with their head torches illuminating a little circle of the ground. Occasionally one would get quite interested in a piece of pavement and give it extended pokes with the stick and then move on.

At first I thought it was cops looking for drugs - or maybe gas leak people - but the speed in which they were moving suggested that that was unlikely. Any one got any ideas?
Click to expand...
Water. Checking for leaks. The equipment is probably a microphone. My brother does it; if he finds a leak he gets extra commission, so when it's late at night he walks the streets of Coventry looking for leaks. Looking like a weirdo.
 
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