This Saturday is a great opportunity to see the Westminster Morris Men – established in 1953 in the City of Westminster, they have been widely recognised as one of the country’s leading mens’ morris teams.

Westminster Morris Men

Saturday May 12th is the Westminster Day of Dance when 12 Morris Teams will be touring London’s West End laying on free displays of dance. The guest teams joining the Westminster Morris Men are the Jockey Morris Men, Earlsdon Morris Men, Hammersmith Morris Men, Ravensbourne Morris Men, Thrales Rapper, Moulton Morris Men, Thaxted Morris Men, Yateley Morris Men, East Surrey Morris Men and Woodside Morris Men.

The sites close to Pimlico where you can see dancing are:

10:15-10:45
Victoria Embankment Steps
St Margaret’s Church, Westminster Abbey
Westminster Cathedral Piazza,
Victoria Street
Tate Britain
11:00-11:30
Cardinal Place, SW1
St Margaret’s Church, Westminster Abbey
12:00-12:40
The Sanctuary, Westminster Abbey

View WMM_DoD_Morning in a larger map

Full details of the the day are available from the Westminster Morrismen

In this video Heidi Roberts of Amber Hart describes the websites that she finds useful. I have added the links described in the video so that you can go to them quickly & easily – I have personalised the list a little to reflect my own experience of Heidi’s websites.

Property Search Websites

http://www.auctionhouse.uk.net

http://www.nethouseprices.com

http://www.propertysnake.co.uk

http://www.mouseprice.com

http://www.Rightmove.co.uk

http://www.property-bee.com

http://www.primelocation

http://www.auctionhouse.uk.net

Useful Utility Websites

http://www.bitly.com

http://www.saynoto0870.com

http://www.wunderkit.com

http://www.dropbox.com note, joining with this link gives you an extra free 0.5G of space.

http://www.landregistry.gov.uk

http://www.salesforce.com

http://www.stoozing.com

http://www.moneysupermarket.com

http://www.newbouldguardians.co.uk

http://www.ukmobilenumber.com

http://www.lmgtfy.com

http://www.fiverr.com

I’m a member of the Guild of Residential Landlords and I wouldn’t be without their website & it’s legal advice.

Battersea Power Station (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I count Battersea as South Pimlico so it’s great news that Chelsea Football Club intend to relocate to South Pimlico. Or is it? The winners of this years FA Cup have submitted a formal offer to purchase the site of Battersea power station which, if accepted, could lead to the club leaving Stamford Bridge and the development of “one of the most iconic football stadiums in the world” at a cost of more than £1bn.

The plan for the 39-acre site at Battersea Nine Elms would involve creating the most iconic football stadium in the world – just over the bridge from Pimlico which would become a major thoroughfare for supporters every Saturday.  The Grade II listed former electricity power station was put up for sale earlier this year following the collapse last November of an Irish-backed scheme to revamp the area, with the site having been valued at around £500m a month earlier.

Chelsea are cautious over their prospects and have stressed no final decision has been made to leave their home of 107 years but, with redeveloping Stamford Bridge restrictive in terms of cost, and few suitable available areas within a three-mile radius, they recognised the availability of the site on the south bank of the Thames as an opportunity that could not be ignored.

Chelsea would attempt to incorporate into the design for a 60,000-seater stadium, with all four chimneys and wash towers, along with the Grade II listed west turbine hall and control room, to be retained in their original locations. The architect Rafael Viñoly has collaborated with the practice Kohn Pedersen Fox on the plans put forward by Almacantar, and Chelsea’s initial proposal includes a 15,000 all-seated one-tier stand behind the south goal, with the stadium effectively built within the familiar brickwork shell of the power station. The proposals would maintain the essential character of the building, which was built in the 1930s and ceased generating electricity in 1983.

The club has also pledged to make a “significant contribution”, believed to be around £200m, towards the Northern Line extension from Kennington via Nine Elms to connect the proposed newstadium to the London Underground network. The development would also include a town centre with street-level retail units, housing and offices.

Chelsea have made no secret of their desire to increase match-day revenues and have been frustrated by the reality that Stamford Bridge is hemmed in on all sides with further redevelopment deemed unviable economically. While they continue to seek sponsors interested in taking up naming rights for their current home, they have also scrutinised various sites within their prescribed three-mile radius and retain an interest in an area at the northern end of Earl’s Court, whose owners Capital & Counties plc are currently pursuing residential and commercial developments of the site, and also White City.

Funding the Battersea project would initially require the sale for redevelopment of Stamford Bridge – potentially for up to £400m – meaning the club will still need to convince shareholders in CPO, the fan-led group that owns the pitch, the turnstiles and the land upon which the arena’s four stands are built, to sell the freehold for the current stadium. They failed to convince CPO at an extraordinary general meeting last October and, at some stage in the future, will re-visit that issue with SayNoCPO insistent that “the viability of redeveloping Stamford Bridge is still a very relevant issue”.

Source

Apart from the passing of the 1988 & 2004 Housing Acts by Parliament I have never experienced such a collection of changes to renting a flat all in one go. The following Legislation has just become effective (April 2012).

• Tenancy Deposit Protection information must now be provided within 30 days or you may be fined and invalidate your right to evict a Tenant by issuing a S21 notice.
• An EPC must be commissioned before a property can be marketed and the EPC must actually be issued within 7 days of marketing.
• In 2018, rental properties with the two lowest EPC scores are due to be banned from the market, meaning that landlords must have improved them by then.
• DHSS allowances for Housing Benefit (LHA) change dramatically.
• The age limit of the Single Room Rate (SRR) rose from 25 to 35 years old. Anyone under 35 yrs will only get Bedsit LHA
• The five bedroom Local Housing Allowance rate has gone so that the maximum level is for a four bedroom flat.
• Local Housing Allowance rates are reduced so that about 3 in 10 properties for rent in the area should be affordable to people on Housing Benefit, rather than every 5 in 10 properties as before.
• Local Housing Allowance weekly rates in any area cannot exceed:
• £250 for a one bedroom property
• £290 for a two bedroom property
• £340 for a three bedroom property
• £400 for a four bedroom property
• Local Housing Allowance (Housing Benefits) will be set in line with the Consumer Prices Index (CPI) instead of the Retail Prices Index (RPI)
• Small-shared houses or flats occupied by between 3 and 6 unrelated individuals who share basic amenities were reclassified under planning laws from “C3 Dwelling Houses” to “C4 Houses in Multiple Occupation“. Depending in which part of the country you are you may need Planning Permission to rent these.

So from today the tenancy agreements that you use should be different to the ones that you used to use. The way that I keep up to date with legislation is through my membership of the Guild of Landlords which costs me £80 p.a. and provides me with current documents and a legal advice line to advise me on their use.  I chose the Guild because it was strongly recommended to me, and I appreciate the personal nature of the organisation. However the other landlord organisations have their own supporters, and I don’t think that it is important which one you join, just that you do join one of them.

After yesterday’s Opera Concert organised by twitter it’s time for “Police of Pimlico” a single by Punk Band The Grit. After a 6 month hiatus, their first show back is at the Garage in London on the 6th May w/ Roddy Radiation (the Specials), and 999! Tickets available to pre-order at Haunted Tattoo’s, and Strummers Studio’s in Holloway.

You can find out more about the band from their Facebook Page or follow them on Twitter

A Concert will be held tomorrow (Saturday 28^th April 2012) at 7.30pm at St Gabriel’s Church, Pimlico (London SW1) which features an exciting line up of up-and-coming talent, performing operatic favourites from La Traviata, Carmen, Marriage of Figaro and more.

This Concert is the result of an experiment in using social media to produce and promote the arts, and was thought up as a new way to engage the public with opera.  In a time when arts funding is being cut, and there are fewer opportunities for emerging professionals, these young singers have harnessed the power of social networking site Twitter to create the first in a series of opera gala concerts. Called “Opera Twala”, every part of the gala has been organized and planned through the site; from selecting the performers to finding the venue and choosing the programme.

Tickets are £10, £8 (concessions) & £5 (under-16s) on the door.

St. Gabriel's Church, Pimlico

For further information follow @OperaTwala or #operatwala on Twitter

Using Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) in your posts on Ning and other HTML based Forums and Bulletin Boards is easier than it sounds. It is surprising how important knowing basic HTML is to a quality online existence – of course many people don’t care about things like grammar, spelling, let alone the things that HTML gives you like layout, well presented quotebacks, embedding videos & pictures, anchor text links …… nevertheless I think it worthwhile in order to present a professional image.

Learning basic HTML through posting on an HTML BB like Ning is a painless way of picking up how HTML works, which will then allow you to do more sophisticated things like adding HTML widgets to your Blog. You don’t need to become an HTML expert – or even that competent – the 80:20 works in your favour – understand 20% of HTML and you will be able to undertake 80% of what you need to do.

In your normal posting view you are shown what you post will look like, but actually it is produced using HTML – as you type you produce HTML which is hidden from you. You can see the HTML that is being coded for you as you type by clicking on the HTML button.

Some simple tags to get you started:

Firstly understand a “Tag” – this controls the content within the “< >” TAG it’s best understood by trying out some of the examples, and also clicking on the HTML view of your posts before posting them to see what the HTML looks like ………..

Note that on the WWW colours are identifies by a code of the form #ffffff – a hash and 6 digits. Every combination of the 6 digits produces a different colour (the digits have to be 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,a,b,c,d,e,f – for a geeky reason that we won’t go into!).

Joining HTML together

You may have noticed that the font, and colour are changed using the <FONT> tag.

If you wanted to change the text to a courier font, and red you would put the following
<FONT FACE=courier COLOR=red>Edited text</FONT> which gives Edited text

Example 2: To make the text bold, underlined and green all at the same time use

<B><U><FONT COLOR=green>Text here</FONT></U></B> gives you Text here

It is important that you close the tags in the same order as they were opened. In the example above <B> was opened first so must be closed last <FONT> was the last opened and first to be closed.

Rules:

• Only tags with the same beginning can be merged together
• All < > tags must be closed with the appropriate </ > tag
• The first tags opened are the last ones to be closed

Adding a link to a different page

Links are what allow people to move to other pages on the Internet. They can usually be identified because the mouse pointer changes when over a link and the text is usually underlined and a different colour. To create a link use the following:

<A HREF=http://www.pimlico-flats.co.uk>Pimlico Flats</a> will look like Pimlico Flats

To display a picture

Use the following:

<IMG SRC=http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v479/mepage/69.gif”> gives

Please note: There is no closing tag for a picture

<IMG> tag properties

You can set the following properties for the <IMG> tag. It is recommended that you set the width and height for each picture as it makes the picture load faster.

WIDTH	The width of the picture
HEIGHT	The height of the picture
ALT	Text to be displayed if the image can not be displayed – note a description should be included to help the visually impaired

Both width and height are specified in either pixels or as a percentage of the screen size.

<img src=”http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v479/mepage/1236.jpg” width=150 height=100 alt=”Snowy mountain”>

You just need to put the two codes together

<A HREF=address of page you want to go too><IMG SRC=address of picture></a>

Create a numbered list

Create a bulleted list

Adding a picture is really simple. All you need is an image host (somewhere to store your pics) the following instructions are for how to use photobucket.

Click on a picture to make it larger

1. Sign up for a free Photobucket account
2. Activate the account
3. Right click on a pic you want to use and select “Save Picture As…”

1. Choose an appropriate place on your computer (recommended place:my documents) and select save
2. Sign in to your photobucket account
3. Click the browse button

1. Find where you saved your pic and click on it, then select the open button
2. Select submit (your picture will now be added to your bucket)

Under the picture there are 3 lines…

• Right click the tag line <img src=”….”> and select copy

• Go to where you want the picture to appear (the boards)
• Right click and select paste in the message box
• Post the message

The picture should now have appeared

You can also rotate and change the size of the picture once it is in photobucket by clicking on the edit button above the picture you want to change.

Creating a signature picture

To put your name on a picture you need some drawing software

Most people use a specialised program called Paint Shop Pro (PSP) to add their name to pictures.

You can download a free trial here.

Now just get creative

Photo credit: LibraryatNight

I was ill – I caught a debilitating disease for which the medical term is Domii Pauci – my G.P. identified the problem and got me an appointment with a specialist who had devoted his life to curing people with this complaint. I prepared a wet fish, and finally the day came for my appointment and I marched into his surgery and announced:

“You bloodsucking leech! How can you live off the misery of your patients! How dare you sit in your comfortable surgery, taking taxpayers money? I am going to make sure that you never practise medicine again! Then I hit him round the face with a wet fish. I don’t think we will see HIM in surgery again!

At least that was the message that I got from today’s Independent in their story:

A new era of house building could create jobs, stimulate growth, and help the poor. So why won’t Cameron do it?

It’s a great story with a lousy message.

Yes there is a problem, especially in London: a modest two-bedroom place in London’s Zone 2 – a standard monthly rent is indeed £800, even £900. The Independent reports hundreds of furious Londoners bombarding with their renting horror stories. One had a 35 per cent rent hike imposed on them at Christmas; another was forced to desert their Stockwell flat after a 40 per cent increase. “My tiny flat in the East End went up by £200 a month for the next occupants when I left”. Clearly the patient is sick, sick with Domii Pauci – a housing shortage.

The Independent’s solution is the wet fish: “Private landlords can do as they please, of course. Having a roof over your head is a basic human requirement and, when there is a lack of houses to go around, it is a need that can be exploited. A landlord knows that, if their tenants don’t like an outrageous rent hike, their only option is to put themselves back at the mercy of the ever more pricey private renting market. According to Shelter, annual rents in inner London went up by 7 per cent last year – or just under £1,000 for a two-bedroom house. When people’s wages are flat-lining, that’s a big hit.”

As a Landlord of some 20 years I have seen this coming, indeed it’s why I am a Landlord. The strange thing is that the Government hasn’t seen it coming, and still doesn’t understand why it is happening, and getting worse. The fixed costs of being a Landlord are increasing exponentially – Pimlico Flats has had to take on an employee solely for the purpose of administering deposits, council tax, utilities. Computerisation has enabled big corporations like Westminster City Council to remove thinking from their activities and leave automated mailshots. New regulations require building work to prevent such things as “death by only having one lock” ……. again, many of the new initiatives are good, and contribute to tenants well being, but some don’t. And all carry a cost, and at the end of the day the tenant bears that cost,  not government, or the landlord.

It’s time for Government and Shelter to examine what leads to higher rents, and what leads to lower rents, and to act accordingly.

Meantime don’t be surprised if Landlords leave the Planet saying thanks for all the fish.

Sue Ryder Shop at Drayton (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Central London has few charity shops but Pimlico has six:

2 FARA shops – the one on Tachbrook St is a children’s specialist with buggies & kids clothes, Oxfam and Sue Ryder, &, Trinity Hospice, CrusAID and Hospices of Hope.

Sadly the most original has long gone – Brick by Brick hoped to solve Westminster and Pimlico’s housing crisis by using profits from the retail shop to fund unemployed people to refurbish homes for rental …. a fantastic ideal that never managed to take off.

Margaret Thatcher

An interesting article today in Social Housing and Local Government news website http://www.24dash.com about how Right To Buy has affected Westminster Council.

Nearly half of Westminster’s 22,000 council homes have been sold through Right-to-Buy in the past 30 years, and because government rules don’t allow local authorities to keep the proceeds of sale the properties haven’t been replaced by further social housing. Of course many of the flats purchased under Rent to Buy have been recycled into Private Sector renting – I personally know of 4 people who were able to retire to the country in middle age on the proceeds of the Right to Buy windfall which could be as much as several hundred thousand pounds in extreme cases.

This has left the council with a situation where they are paying housing benefit to tenants who are renting ex-council properties from private landlords – and this costs the council around four times the rent charged for a council home rented directly from the council, and on occasions up to five or six times the council rent.

What a mess – but probably not a mess that the government wishes to acknowledge as it stems from a conservative policy a generation ago, rather than something that can be neatly pinned on the last government.