If you have a season ticket on your oyster card

Very useful information, via Diamond Geezer:

This guide shows you how to get a third off any single off-peak rail travel using your oystercard, if you already have a 16-25 Railcard, Disabled Railcard, a Gold Card, HM Forces Railcard, or a Senior Railcard.

But you have to go and ask a human being for it, in a station. Which is daft… It’s almost like they don’t want you to use it!

I love the fact that the guide includes step-by-step button-pushing instructions for the station staff.

With Jam and Bread

Just on the very edge of Blackheath and Lee, With Jam and Bread deserves your custom. It’s a great little independent coffee shop. It’s less pretentious inside than the name might make you think.

We had beans on toast, a toasted cheese sandwich and two lattes for £9.50, and it was all delicious. The place is clean, bright, and tidy. The staff are friendly but not intrusive. There was 80s pop playing when we went in, but not too loudly. It’s kid friendly without being overrun by children (at least not on a Saturday morning at 10am). I think it has bursts of business, as whenever I’ve walked past, it’s either been very full or almost empty.

Not sure about the kerning though…

See also Brockley Central post here, and Murdoch’s newsletter (£).

Linden cordial at farmers market

Very nice new (to me) addition at the farmers market – Linden Cordial. As well as the Sea Buckthorn fizz that I re-tweeted yesterday, the linden cordial is also lovely. Going to experiment with some gin too, which according to this recipe should work well! £4.50 a bottle, but a little goes a long way.

Photo from their website.

Tractor production is up 30%

Particularly choice quotes about the library from July’s Blackheath Assembly minutes (emphasis mine):

The meeting received information that the temporary library set up at the Bakehouse has been successful to date. The resource continues to attract more people particularly children and young mothers and these numbers will only increase once the new library is up and running[…]

With regards to the main replacement library project, an £800,000 investment project is on coursee[…]

It is envisaged that the new facility will be open on the 22 November 2012 by Sir Steve Bullock, the Mayor of Lewisham and David Grant, the Mayor of Greenwich. Over the next month or two there will be a competition for the public to put forward their ideas of what the new centre should be called so there is a sense of involvement and community spirit. The competition will carry a prize of £1,000 and the winner will be announced at the opening ceremony by Sir Steve. Participants can put their entry forward via email or through the website.

If you have any suggestions for library titles, please send them here: localassemblies@lewisham.gov.uk

See previous post for a clearer picture.

Blackheath’s library: Lowest number of visits in Lewisham

The graph above shows the number of people who visited Lewisham’s various libraries in 2012. The green line at the bottom is the Blackheath community library.

Let’s zoom in a bit, and just look at the community libraries:

So of all the community libraries in Lewisham, ours gets the fewest visits (and the fewest items issued too incidentally).

But maybe the old library was never very popular either, right? Except that here are the two months of visitors data just before it closed. Look how they compare to the same two months in 2012 for the new library:

For every one person that walks into the current library, more than five people walked into the old one in 2011.

The old library which is now a private school.

I hope the Labour councillors and MP are proud of this achievement. Bravo.

Issue Data from google doc here.
Visitor data from google doc here.
See previous post on this subject Ex-libraries from 2011

Turkey coming and going

The Bookshop on the Heath has interesting books about Turkey in its windows. Never read The Eunuch of Stamboul, but according to this blog post, looks like an entertaining read. Apparently it was also made into a film in 1936, which can be viewed for free at the BFI’s Mediatheque.

Speaking of Turkey, Blackheath’s dabbling with Turkish food has come to a close. Not a huge surprise given some of the competition nearby. It was never a great place, as many of the reviews here have mentioned. Will Cote be any better?

14 year old killed outside Sainsbury’s

Tragic sight this morning doing the shopping.

UPDATED: Please note that this story is from September 16th, and is referring to Saturday September 15th.
From BBC News: Lee stabbing: Kevin Ssali, 14, killed at bus stop

A 14-year-old boy, who had been missing since July, has been stabbed to death in south-east London.
Kevin Ssali, of Whitworth Road in South Norwood, was attacked after he got off a route 202 bus in Lee.
Police and paramedics were called to Burnt Ash Road at about 21:45 BST on Saturday where they found him with multiple stab wounds.
Three teenage males have been arrested on suspicion of murder, police said.

8 minutes walk away, on the 202 route, Jimmy Mizen was killed in 2008 in a bakery.