Wednesday 8 June 2011

Midweek Ramble


A few pictures at taken yesterday, see http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/611/id5.htm with a few notes here on them.

Granville Marina Restaurant is coming on a pace although my concerns about the cliff maintenance behind the extended part don’t seem to have been addressed yet, everything else about it looks ok.

The Pleasurama development seems to have pretty much ground to a halt, at the pace they are moving I would think it will take several decades to build, it is a great pity that the other parts of this prime site are not being used for some sort of visitor attraction while the delays continue.

Something has gone wrong with one of the outfall pipes on the main sands so that whatever fluid is in it, is coming up through the beach. Obviously after heavy rain there will be discharges from overflow and emergency outfall pipes, I would say that this happens pretty much everywhere and isn’t peculiar to Thanet.

The problem in Thanet though seems to be a lack of local coordination, so that if there is some sort of contamination no action is taken. The tests go on with out any qualification, so we lose our Red Flags (sorry correction, it’s red rags and blue flags isn’t it, I should have written Blue Flags)  . No warning signs go up when the sea is known to be contaminated by a discharge, so people lack confidence they are swimming in safe water. In short all of the work is being done the tests being done the discharges being recorded, but lack of basic coordination means that it is all pretty much wasted.

Ramsgate Maritime Museum is still closed and I will try to find out why, the prominent council owned assets in Ramsgate are becoming something of a local joke.

A jewellers shop that was in Margate High Street have moved their shop to Harbour Street in Ramsgate and will be open soon. A sad side effect of Margate High Street declining to the point that it isn’t possible for them to trade there any more.

The community café in King Street Ramsgate that was run by the charity Mind and suddenly closed seems to be being opened by another charity The Skillnet Group, who support people with learning difficulties.

The last picture shows the bad state of King Street, of course much of this is down to the council not implementing the “Impact” pedestrianisation project properly and as the public consultation wanted.

On to the blogs.

An interesting comment on the last post from by John Hoyler pointing out that Laura Sandys has asked a question in parliament about the export of live animals through Ramsgate harbour.

As far as I can see the council don’t have any animal welfare policy in place, which is something they may have to look at. As I have pointed out before as a drinker of cow’s milk I haven’t really got a leg to stand on over this, the majority of live animal exports are due to all of the unwanted calves produced to ensure milk production and the lack of demand for veal in the UK.

With four children and a limited income, I am afraid it is a case of doing ones best but economic restrictions mean we have to consume products that support farming practices that are the norm for the majority.

Blog post of the week has to be Thanet Waves “Who is the sexiest councillor” see http://www.thanetwaves.co.uk/2011/06/who-is-tdcs-sexiest-councillor.html what a choice.

Newspapers.

The Isle of  Thanet Gazette and Thanet Times website seems to have gone totally down the pan, even the papers journalists don’t know how to find the recent articles there.

Your Thanet that stopped being a paper newspaper recently and now only have an online paper with very little local content apart from press releases mostly from the council, have started sending me spam emails.

Thanet Extra seem to be pretty much the same as usual see http://www.kentonline.co.uk/thanet_extra/news/todays_news.aspx

The problem of how local papers deal with the internet is a very tricky one and I think goes back many years to when local papers first started to produce free papers, the idea being that the advertising would pay for the journalism. What started out with the odd free paper has had its up and down spirals   



Ultimately the problem with the internet is as once something written has become an electronic file, how do you get anyone to pay anything for it? From this follows the question, how do writers get paid?


I write what you read here during odd moment in the bookshop when I wouldn’t be doing anything else and have never considered deriving any income from doing so, but for the people who derive their living from writing this is a serious problem. 

After some fiddling about I think you will find the following link takes you to the online versions of most of last Friday’s Isle of Thanet Gazette stories http://www.thisiskent.co.uk/people/Isle%20of%20Thanet%20Gazette/profile.html 

11 comments:

  1. Michael did you mean to say blue flags in the first paragraph?

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  2. Apologies for that one Don, I even read the post through after I had published it and didn’t notice.

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  3. Red flags would be highly appropriate for our newly elected, self-confessed bisexual,ex socialist labour party councillor in northwood

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  4. Here is some more on animal exports from Ramsgate Port:

    "Laura Sandys (South Thanet, Conservative)
    To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what information regarding animal welfare (a) on the journey and (b) at the final destination is requested by the Animal Exports Division of her Department before authorisations for exports are granted.

    Hansard source (Citation: HC Deb, 8 June 2011, c310W)

    James Paice (Minister of State (Agriculture and Food), Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; South East Cambridgeshire, Conservative)
    The Animal Health and Veterinary Laboratories Agency (AHVLA) is responsible for checking the application for a journey log which has to be submitted by the transporter for any consignment of major livestock species or domestic equidae that are to be exported on journeys lasting over 8 hours. The application must provide, among other things, details of the length of the journey including any statutory rest periods. Once AHVLA is satisfied that the journey will meet all of the necessary EU legal requirements, it is approved. The journey log must then accompany the consignment on the journey to the final destination. The journey log must be returned by transporters to AHVLA following completion of the journey. AHVLA undertakes checks of returned journey logs to ensure the journey was completed as planned, (or if deviations occurred, these were justifiable) and that no infringements of the EU legislation took place."

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  5. How very refreshing to hear Thanets premier envoy singing the praises of our sceptered isle AGAIN!!

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  6. Ok, 1445, who is the Labour councillor who 'Bats' for both sides???

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  7. Ian driver - he describes himself as an "out" bisexual in this pamphlet whilst slamming arthur scargill for not being a real socialist

    http://www.whatnextjournal.co.uk/Pages/back/Wnext6/Slp.html

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  8. 9.21 I notice your link doesn’t work so have done it so it does

    http://www.whatnextjournal.co.uk/Pages/back/Wnext6/Slp.html

    If you want to know how to put a working link in a blog comment email me.

    This is something I can’t explain in a comet as the html you need to add is invisible when viewed in your browser.

    With 20% of the population having gay or bisexual tendencies, the law of averages suggests there are likely to be another 10 gay or bi councillors and this isn’t likely to be something particular to one political party.

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  9. I couldn't care less which way he swings - that's his business. However his background as a Southwark councillor, member of the SLP (see his Facebook comments of 11 months ago, copied below) seem to indicate that his views haven't changed.
    "I joined the Labour Party today after 13 years away within less than 30 seconds I gotta a text message welcoming me to the Party within 10 minutes I had an e-mail from David Milliband - didn't ever used to be like this. It used to take weeks to join. Mind you when they find out who I am my membership might be a short one". If you need further evidence just visit the pile of vitriol that he puts together as Red Thanet.
    If you remember back to the 80s you'll remember that Militant infiltrated the Labour Party by stealth - history repeating itself?

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  10. Having just been on the TDC site looking Ian up I can say all of this has escaped me and as for Red Tendancies Labour is Red its just the shading that you encounter and Tory is blue but once again different shades. See what your midweek rambles dig up Michael maybe we should colour code our councillors.

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  11. Don
    I'm not sure if you're old enough to remember the palace revolution at the GLC that followed the Labour win at the inaugural election. A relatively moderate Labour leader was thrown out overnight and replaced by a far left cabal led by Ken Livingstone. Ian, of course, would not consider Livingstone as far left.
    The potential for something similar exists in Thanet. A ruling group hanging on and at the mercy of three Independents, only one of whom is Tory inclined. A weak Labour leadership and a number of new and relatively anonymous Labour councillors. You work it out.

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Comments, since I started writing this blog in 2007 the way the internet works has changed a lot, comments and dialogue here were once viable in an open and anonymous sense. Now if you comment here I will only allow the comment if it seems to make sense and be related to what the post is about. I link the majority of my posts to the main local Facebook groups and to my Facebook account, “Michael Child” I guess the main Ramsgate Facebook group is We Love Ramsgate. For the most part the comments and dialogue related to the posts here goes on there. As for the rest of it, well this blog handles images better than Facebook, which is why I don’t post directly to my Facebook account, although if I take a lot of photos I am so lazy that I paste them directly from my camera card to my bookshop website and put a link on this blog.