tomroyal.com

Simon Nundy is the Conservative candidate for Mayor of Lewisham. On his website you'll find this graph:

Eagle eyed Lewisham residents will note, of course, that there was no Lewisham Mayoral election in 2008. The last was in 2006. More importantly, that election saw the Lib Dems come in second (18,889) behind Labour (25,129), with the Tory candidate languishing in third (10,790). The Green Party did pretty well, too, coming in fourth with 7168. Full results here.

The figures in Mr Nundy's graph are from the 2008 London Mayoral Election, where it was a two horse race between Boris Johnson and Ken Livingstone – a rather different set of circumstances. So here we have a clear attempt to pass off one set of figures as another in an attempt to woo tactical anti-Labour votes away from the Lib Dems. Perhaps the idea is that we Lewisham voters won't be bright enough to spot the trick.

I've emailed Mr Nundy to ask for his comments – but then Brockley Central picked up on this a few days ahead of me and they've heard nothing yet.

It's also important to note that it seems the Conservative party isn't the only one publishing some rather unusual graphs around here. Green Party candidate Darryl Chamberlain pointed out that Greenwich Labour appear to be up to some funny business in Peninsula Ward.

From the BBC's otherwise fairly interesting article on the politics and ethics of consumer spending comes this wonder of historical ineptitude from one Lucia van der Post (emphasis added):

"The way of austerity and only buying things we strictly need leads to Cambodia under Pol Pot, Afghanistan under the Taleban or China under Mao"

Because we all know what Chairman Mao hated most of all: the Selfridges Blue Cross Sale. He utterly despised this annual festival of consumerism. In fact, despite all evidence that he was a ruthless opportunist hell bent on power and willing to take any policitally expedient measure, no matter the human cost, I think you'll find that the entire history of Communism in China was organised in order to prevent citizens from going out and buying PlayStation 3 consoles using money borrowed from Ocean Finance. Apparently.

And that's ignoring the ruthless, cutting political naivety required to mentally reduce the rise of the Khmer Rouge and the Taleban to a fictional groundswell of anti-consumerism. Where do they find these people, and what planet do they live on?

I like coffee. I like it very much, and I enjoy it very often. About a year ago, in an attempt to lower my general level of angsty stress by a couple of percentage points, I tried to stop drinking anything caffeinated. I learned:

1. Decaf coffee is awful
2. Decaf tea is worse
3. Caffeine withdrawal symptoms last about a week and are vile
4. I'm just as wound up without caffeine as I an with it

So, that was the end of that little experiment. Sadly, my current office lacks a filter coffee machine – instead we have some sort of automated thing where you type in numbers in exchange for small paper cupfulls of liquid (true story: I once spent the best part of a minute tapping in my PIN over and over and getting increasingly annoyed that nothing happened – this illustrates why coffee was needed). This means that, more often than not, I have to throw myself on the mercies of London's many coffee shops. And what have I learned? Most are really awful.

So, with that in mind I thought I'd start to compile a list of places where you can buy really, really good coffee in London. So far I've found just three that I'd recommend:

First, Flat White on Berwick Street. This is just across from my office, so I could go in there every day were it not the need to pay my mortgage each month. It's small but has a few tables and specialises in, as you'd guess, the flat white, which is I think best described as a kind of homogenised latte milkshake – strong, really rich and just delicious. Probably bad for you in the long run, certainly bad for your wallet, but brilliant. One caveat is the small cups, but then drinking one of those huge Starbucks paper cups of flat white might have dodgy side effects.

Secondly, the stupidly named Coffee@ on Brick Lane. This shop makes a fantastic latte, plays music of the type that lives on my iPod loudly all day and has big sofas of the "sink into this sofa and you will not wish to move for hours" variety. If you find yourself in Tower Hamlets, this is the place to go.

Third, Zilli Cafe on Brewer Street. Not as good as the other two, but makes a cup of coffee to take away that tastes like coffee rather than hot caffeinated bitter crud. But then again, Flat White is just around the corner.

And that's three places in a city of god knows how many coffee shops – how depressing. Will add any more I find, but if anyone has any recommendations I'd love to hear them.

In the town where I grew up we didn't get a lot of junk mail. I then moved to Birmingham, where my rented house attracted both the usual (pizza flyers, polling cards for residents who moved out decades previously) and the less usual (Scientology literature, cruise ship catalogues and, strangest of all, what appeared to be a brochure for foot fetishists). Not until we moved to Lewisham, however, did we get flyers from various "spiritual healers".

Many are of the Christian variety, and these are usually quite flashy: a recent glossy flier from Pastor Chris pictured a man, presumably recently healed, holding a wheelchair above his head – sadly, due to some poor Photoshopping, he appeared to be preparing to attack the Houses of Parliament with it. Others, like this one, are a little less designed. Mind you, it turns out that spiritual healers gifted from birth set their advert body text in Gill Sans. Who knew?