Friday 14 September 2012

Wind up the week ramble

 News about Thanet this week has been quite prominent, the animal export business being at the top of the list and for once seeming to produce unity between all of our political factions.
 I am no vegetarian, quite frankly the English countryside devoid of livestock, which is what would happen if we all were doesn’t appeal to me, but I have to admit to being very firmly against the ill treatment of animals, so am very glad to see the end of live animal exports out of Ramsgate.
 My thanks to all those involved Laura Sandys, Ian Driver, Clive Hart and more, it is good to see the council sticking its neck out and risking action from central government and Brussels.
 
 The news that none of the children in Thanet’s care homes are from Kent highlights the problems that we are up against locally, very much a place for other areas to export their problems to.
 Apparently a Thanet printer has been condemned for printing offensive material about Margaret Thatcher to celebrate her death, see http://www.redstuffshop.com/page8.htm I’m not precisely sure who has condemned them, most Tory commentators are probably blockading Calais in protest at Kate topless photos in Closer Magazine http://www.closermag.fr/
 La jolie Kate Middleton aime peut être prendre des bains de soleil dans le plus simple appareil plus parler que les fesses du prince Harry !

Perhaps a bit more later.

26 comments:

  1. Michael,

    Why do you seem to imply that it is only Tory commentators who are upset about the French printing these photos.

    Secondly, can you clarify your position on the Margaret Thatcher 'death material'.

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  2. Sorry about that John, I didn't mean to imply that and my position is strictly missionary.

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  3. Here's one headline you didn't pick up on Michael:

    http://www.thisiskent.co.uk/Fate-Dreamland-Margate-hanging-balance-court/story-16902798-detail/story.html

    Even as someone who lives in Margate, what I'd suggest that TDC do now is (a) Bulldoze the site and build a main road through it, pedestrianizing the seafront in the process. (b) Spend the money building a new funfair on Ramsgate's old Pleasurama site instead (it would make a nice change for TDC to invest there instead of Margate)...

    Incidentally I spent a very pleasant couple of hours today sitting outside Enoteca (Harbour Street) overlooking Ramsgate Harbour (a "business lunch" with one of my models + another soon-to-be model), I really must go there more often.

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    1. Peter, have you been in France with your camera?
      But your news item could be bad news for TDC and Margate, but whats another 3 years of waiting in Margate when Ramsgate has been waiting longer for the Pleasurama development, and still waiting.
      With the coallition relaxing the rules regrding the provision in the percentage of social housing in large housing projects the Dreamland site becomes even more valuable and its not surprising the owner will continue the fight.

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    2. Of course there's no guarantee that TDC will actually win the case after 3 years of spending a fortune of our money fighting it.

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    3. Sorry about that Peter, with it being on the front page of the Gazette I obviously missed it, I had assumed that this was the inevitable course of action and that the council would have expected it to happen.

      Just come back from sitting outside thee Queens Head overlooking the harbour, very pleasant too. With Pleasurama it is very difficult to tell what both the council’s and the developer’s motives are, both say it is to get the development built but I think it possible the developer may be involved in some kind of land banking and the council trying to regain the site without facing having to pay the developer out. I guess if there was any intention to continue building then they would have at least put rust preventative on the exposed reinforcing rods. At the moment neither council officers, the council’s leader nor the developer’s contractor seem to want to discuss the site with me.

      The trouble with these large and prominent sires Dreamland and Pleasurama is once they have been developed by a property developer there is no way back and increasingly dense residential accommodation by the sea doesn’t make a viable town on its own.

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  4. |If none of Kent's children are in Thanet's childrens homes where do Thanet's children that need to be in care go? Or are there no children from the area that need this care?

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    1. They are all in Albion Street car park buying booze from the boot of some chaps car along with single cigarettes. Well, perhaps not all, for a load more kids are doing the same thing over in Westgate whilst others are wrecking toilets or burning people's beach huts. Then again, they need birching more than care.

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    2. They can’t all be, as mine and a lot of other ones were at sea scouts this evening.

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    3. Michael,

      As I understand it KCC has a policy of not placing children in Care Homes, instead the policy is to place the children in Foster homes. I hope this clarifies the issue.

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    4. Michael, the reference responded to was about where are Thanet's children that need care, in the authority sense rather than parental. Hence those youngsters at sea scouts along with all the other decent ones at cubs, scouts, ATC, AFC and just doing homework were not the subject.

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  5. Maybe the Thatcher death pack stories are stealing headlines that should be about her role in wanting police exonerated by lies in the Hillsborough Disaster ? She did not want Police to face the truth as that might trigger the truth to emerge about Orgreave.

    And maybe she did not want Tam Dalyell getting too close to the Falklands and Belgrano truths ?

    Police and quids pro quo ?

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    1. How brave we are attacking a frail old lady. Why not have a go at Iran's ayatollahs, but please remember to use your own name. Oh, and the Belgrano truth. It was a heavily armed warship which could have endangered our fleet so one of our submarines sank it. It happens in war. Perhaps Tom Dalyell should have asked the Japs why they sank the Prince of Wales, oh but silly me, there would have been no political mileage in that would there?

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    2. anonymous @ 2028,

      Just for the record, at the time when Margaret Thatcher was PM were you an adult or born even?

      Whatever the case may be I suggest that you make and impartial study of the history books. Remember that history is not what we believe it to be.

      Then having done this struggle to find the character to use your own name.

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    3. Please see my IPP. It was addressed to anonymous @ 8:28AM

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    4. In the 70's I was serving in the FCO representing our country abroad. Where we were perceived by other nations, including the USA, Europe and the old Commonwealth as as a country that was in terminal decline, that no one listened to, and was a joke. Many were openly laughing at us. Then along came Maggie. They stopped laughing. We regained respect throughout the world. Other countries now wanted to talk to us, and to trade with us. Several countries envied us Margaret Thatcher. And yes, this was before the Falklands.

      Denigrate Margret Thatcher if you must, if that is what you have been taught to do. But do not kick a frail old lady when she is down and still have the gall to call yourself British.

      On a personal note: Maggie loathed the FCO. She thought is was woolly. She tried to kick us out of the building in Westminster because it was too close to Downing St. It was just across the road. But I for one one respected her immensely. I respected her because she did what she believed in and not what some fickle focus group told her to do. She did not seek to be popular for its own sake, rather she did what she believed was best for this country. Mostly, she got it right.

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    5. Please see my IPP: For the record, the FCO is still there just across the road from Downing Street.

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    6. I could make up any name as you John may have done for all I know as there are no details listed for you such as address and phone number. So its rather pointless atttacking an anon until you list yor full details

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    7. Anon, 4:04, since one of the objects of these blogs is to comment on issues raised it is inevitable, and quite legitimate, to be attacked by those with differing views regardless of what they call themselves. If you don't want to be attacked, even in your anonymous guise, then don't comment.

      Surely it is far better to debate, substantiate your own point of view if you can, rather than simply making playground quality retorts. John Holyer spoke from personal experience on how he found Margaret Thatcher. He did not simply attack you. Whether that is his real name or not is irrelevant, at least we can follow the thread of his several comments. You, on the other hand, could be anyone of the many who comment anonymously. Accept though that is your choice.

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    8. Anonymous @ 4:04pm,

      I ask you again, just for the record, at the time when Margaret Thatcher was PM were you an adult or born even?


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    9. anononymous @ 4:04,

      My full details are out there for anyone with the wit to find them.

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  6. 8:28 - I know a woman who is still scarred by the traumas she faced as a little girl going to school in north Derbyshire. Vile women with hate in their faces called her a scab, spat on her and made foul comments about her father who was a working miner in one of those pits not taken in by Scargill's lies. That is the truth of your Orgreave coupled with the political aims of a raving communist, funded from the USSR, who turned brother against brother whilst destroying their jobs in pursuit of his own agenda.

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  7. Well said, John Holyer, for distorted versions of history are trundled out all too often in support of bigotted political argument. That along with a tendency to hint at truths never proven are repeated so often that the originators come to think they are quoting facts. Sadly though, even historians are not above putting a biased slant on happenings.

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  8. As someone in the Task Force I can tell you we were rreally pleased when we heard that the Belgrano had been sunk

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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.