Brockley Bites - Philosophy-Free Special

DLR set for Charing Cross

Once derided as a Mickey Mouse service that didn't really go anywhere, the Docklands Light Railway is arguably London's most successful public transport service, successfully growing its tendrils in to new parts of the city. One of the most likely extensions in their future planning appears to be an extension from Bank to Charing X via City Thameslink and Aldwych. Given the speed at which the DLR can be built and that it would use a number of existing platforms, the extension may not be a very distant prospect. An extension to Catford still seems a relatively distant prospect though.

Getting rid of large objects

We have now used both Lewisham Freecycle and the Council's Special Collection service. We used Freecycle to get rid of a sofa, which was harder than we expected. Despite the sofa being in decent condition (and from Habitat, no less) a lot of people turned their noses up at it when we sent them a photo, while a few other respondents either sounded decidedly dodgy or didn't bother with basic pleasantries in their messages. Eventually it went to a good home in Forest Hill.

We used the special collection service to rid ourselves of three large items. They have to be left outside the house, within the boundaries of your property, the night before collection day (which was within about a week of calling) . One of the large objects (we forget what it was) took the eye of someone more resourceful than us, as it sat in our front "garden", so it disappeared overnight. This meant that, when the collection team arrived and saw only two large objects cluttering the front of our home, they concluded that this couldn't be the collection in question and promptly left, without bothering to let us know of their logical deduction. After a second call to the Council, during which we were initially told that we hadn't left anything for collection, we got them to come back and the items eventually went without further hassle. There is a flat charge (£20) for this service and a maximum limit of three items.

Key cutting

We got three keys cut at the hardware shop a couple of doors down from Moonbow Jakes. All three opened the locks they were meant for, which constitutes a recommendation.

Going Local

Brockley Central regular Tom has had the temerity to start his own blog about Brockley stuff. And worse still, it's pretty good.