Sunday ramblings from the secondhand book trade in Ramsgate

Looking around the posts and comments on the other local blogs this morning this was mainly a quick glance at http://thanetblogs.blogspot.com/ which I probably need to add a few to, does anyone else use it and if so any suggestions? The airport expansion is becoming the next big issue, with various different takes on it including two politicians that I voted for in the last elections, Steve Ladyman and David Green.

I have to explain here I am not a labour supporter, just a floating voter, but once I have voted for someone I feel certain responsibilities for him or her.

One thing that surprises me is the lack of apparent coordination between big local projects, one of the most startling being the airport expansion master plan showing the airport access road going through the inside of some of the buildings that form the proposed China Gateway project.

An aspect of bookselling that is always difficult is those books that need repairing or rebinding as the cost of this work is often more that the value of the book, in marginal cases I tend to go ahead anyway.

This month quite a few of the books I had back from the bookbinders were on military matters most were published between about 1810 and 1915, one of the ones that gave me and the bookbinder considerable pleasure is almost a complete run of Sphere Magazine for The First World War (the pile of brown books in the picture).

Sphere had some of the best artists and photographers working for them as you can see from the pictures of the Blimp from the issue published 90 years ago, this massive pictorial record of the war takes one as close as one can get to the war.

Click hera to enlarge the picturesI tried to join Kent TV last week to vote for our local singer see http://thanetonline.blogspot.com/2009/01/thanks-for-offering-to-put-my-video-and.html it wouldn’t let me join and they didn’t respond to my email apart from saying that they would eventually. Same thing happened when I contacted KCC over the Marina Esplanade incline arches the week before just an automated email and nor response. See http://thanetonline.blogspot.com/search?q=arches for more about these arches. You have to scroll down a bit as the link brings up every post I have mention arches in including this one.

Click on the link for some more pictures of the bookbinders work http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/blogpicts2/id51.htm it really is rather good.

Oh and as I ramble along here I forget to mention that I noticed there is to be a cabinet reshuffle at TDC. Although cabinet members change what they are responsible for they tell me it’s not a reshuffle in a true sense, oh well we are in Thanet.

Incidentally did anyone notice the bookbinders spelling mistake on one of the leather bindings it made me chuckle particularly after the pig lady on QI?