Council touting more tickets for the O2

The Council are once again selling tickets in their (our?) corporate box for events at the O2.

This time it's the Disneyland Adventure, which I think is some kind of show on ice.

Greenwich Card holders can try to "win" the chance to buy the tickets. The "lucky" winners can then pay the Council £40 for the tickets, which is the same price as the most expensive tickets that anyone can buy through Ticketmaster for the same event.

Is it really much of an offer or a competition if you're paying the price of the most expensive tickets?

The full email is below, once again they've not given people much time to respond to it:

Latest offer from GreenwichCard...

Come down to The O2 to see the Disneyland Adventure featuring The Incredibles, along with Syndrome, Frozone and Edna Mode.

GreenwichCard is offering you the chance to watch your favourite superheroes from Greenwich Council's corporate suite on Thursday 18 October at 7.30pm; Friday 19 October at 7.30pm; Saturday 20 October at 12noon or Tuesday 23 October at 2.30pm. Tickets are £40 each and there is a maximum of four per person.

To have a chance of winning please email greenwichcard@greenwich.gov.uk telling us how many tickets you would like for which show, and including a daytime contact telephone number.

Deadline is 12noon on Tuesday 16 October. We will draw the winning names out of a hat and inform the winners on Tuesday afternoon.

The Royal Standard, Blackheath

I don't often comment about pubs, that's not because I don't go to them but just because I either drink away from the area or find a pub and stick to it.

Anyway I've been to the Royal Standard in Blackheath a few times now and I'm quite taken with it. It used to seem a bit grotty to me but recently it's undergone a bit of an overhaul and some nice seats, tables and a new menu has come in.

Between my friends and I we've had a few of the meals and in particular we can recommend the Sausages & Mash (which comes in a big Yorkshire pudding) and the Thai Curry (though the prawn cracker is comes with is a touch on the bizarre side). Basically it all seems to be good solid pub fare.

There's a few ales & bitter, including Speckled Hen and Spitfire, on tap too which considering I'm not a big lager fan is a good thing to find.

Looking back I think I've visited it at a variety of times and never found it too crowded.

So a thumbs up from me anyway, and that about sums up the Royal Standard.

Going Up

Shooters Hill is really pretty high. Well I had the chance the other day to go even higher. I'm not too sure if I can say what I did but suffice to say it was an excellent opportunity that I couldn't turn down.

It was a bit of a shame that it was a bit misty, however that did add a mysterious and somewhat romantic air to London lying out before you. I could see all around me too, from looking into town to the north west, the airport to the north, the Dartford Bridge to the east and the greenery to the south.

One thing that did hit me is that there's a very visible ridge/valley edge before the land drops down to the river Thames. In Charlton you walk up that hill to get from the Station to the Village, in Greenwich park the observatory is perched on it. You can just about make it out in the photograph above, it runs almost through the middle. At the bottom of that hill it's all very flat indeed.

I could see down into Charlton, the stadium seemed hidden but I could see the tower block next to it.

All in all an amazing sight. What with one thing and another I'm beginning to get a little jaded about my Charlton life. It's nice to have a different view of things and to be reminded that we do live in an amazing city.

It was all very peaceful and I could have stayed there for hours just watching the city and the sun go down. However there was a man with keys who wanted to go home for his dinner so I had to leave. A memorable day.

Recyle juice and milk cartons!

A little piece of news hidden away in the Greenwich Time magazine is that you can now recycle juice and milk cartons in Greenwich. I think it deserved a bit more of a fanfare than that, this is great news!

I get through a lot of juice in a week and it always bothered me that you couldn't recycle the cartons, apparently that's because they contain a mix of some kind of plastic and aluminium.

Well now they've got some special machines that can deal with them. It sounds like they mince them up and are able to separate out the plastic and the metal.

However you can't just throw them in with your regular recycling, you have to take them to some special black bins. At the moment the ones nearest here are at ASDA, Sainsburys and on Plumstead Common opposite the Co-Op.

I'll be heading off on to do my shopping later and will be taking my first batch of cartons with me.

After having to say some really bad things about the Council it's nice to be able to say something positive about them :)

Alarm update update

Well the alarm has finally stopped having sounded since Friday.

I'm not sure if the Council actually did something or if, like so much of the area, it realised it was never going to get any attention and just gave up.

I'd like to think that maybe I played a part in getting it stopped and just helped the area a tiny bit. I'll be writing a letter to the council complaining about the incorrect information on their web site so that's another small thing that I can do to make that little bit of a difference.