Saturday 10 November 2012

Picking up the Pizzas


I guess looking at the local blogs this morning you may be wondering what the fuss is about, first Luke Edwards on Thanet Waves, see http://www.thanetwaves.co.uk/2012/11/dfl-ephant-in-room.html and now Simon Moores on Thanet Life, see http://birchington.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/pizza-problems.html

Here in Ramsgate, it seems most of the news is in Margate at the moment, what with Tesco and now this. Ironically the Belgian Café here in Ramsgate has recent installed a pizza chef and although my being in there yesterday evening meant that I missed the bbc news item and what councillor Driver said, I actually had chocolate cake and not pizza.

First off here is the link to the news item, Ian Driver et al http://www.bbc.co.uk/i/b01nr2mz/ the item is at 28.50, please let me know if this doesn’t work properly for you.


BBC news items are inclined to vanish so I recommend if you want to see this one you do so fairly promptly.

We now come to the issue of DFL, I should explain myself here, my mother came down, up, well sideways from Salisbury in the 1960s bringing us children with her, and more recently I recame down from Biggleswade twenty five years ago to open the bookshop.

Here in Thanet we have some sort of indigenous population that probably goes back to Hengist and Horsa. Trouble is that since about 1815 when the first paddle steamer arrived in Margate from London giving reliable transport, years before even the Brighton Line, our whole economy has been a bit of an up and own from London, even councillor Driver sounds a bit DFL as long as the L is Leeds. 

Now the article in question http://civilianglobal.com/features/gb-pizza-company-margate-turner-contemporary-emin/ by Margate’s purveyor of pizzas seemed fairly balanced and realistic to me. Perhaps the question we should be asking is did the, “lowlifes wielding tins of Tennent’s Extra” come down from London at some time, and even did they come of their own volition, or were they forced to move by one of the London councils engage in. What? At best, social engineering, at worst social cleansing. 

I am not saying here that either all our low life is indigenous, or it is all DFL, however I don’t think that it is a problem that will go away if we pretend it doesn’t exist, or talking about it should lead to problems.  

Staying with the Margate theme, here is the letter from Mary Portas to Eric Pickles that has been mentioned a few times with reference to the Tesco public enquiry http://michaelsbookshop.com/laptop1112/id3.htm  

I will ramble on here between book customers trying to work out the ins and outs of this one.

19 comments:

  1. I'm wondering how long it takes to transform from being a DFL to becoming a local? I've been here (Thanet and Herne Bay) since 1985, and more or less consider myself a Thanetarian, but I still also have enough of London in me to see how far behind the times many born and bred locals are. We've seen that with the bigotry displayed by many (whether taxi drivers or councillors), and I've witnessed the 70s throwback behaviour many times myself, particularly when a doorman at a well-known local theatre (when are local businessman going to realise that it's NOT ok to pat waitresses arses?!).

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. But it is OK to photogtaph them without their knickers on! Bizarre values you Margate folk seem to have.

      Delete
    2. Yes, because it's WITH THEIR CONSENT!!!

      I would've thought even a born and inbred local like you would know the difference between molestation and modelling.

      Delete
    3. Bradstow Boy @7:53,

      Furthermore not only does he photogtaph them he also photographs them. Oh rue the day.

      Delete
    4. Peter,

      Do you really photogtaph them? Would this be a Tantric technique perhaps?

      Delete
  2. Regarding Tesco at Arlington, I was somewhat surprised to see (as revealed by "Smudger") that Louise Oldfield (of Margate Architecture / anti-Tesco-at-Arlington fame) shops in Tesco at Westbrook. I'm not putting her down (she's a nice person who genuinely cares about Margate), but it does make me wonder if / when Tesco is built at Arlington whether she'll walk or drive past it to use the smaller Tesco (with less choice and higher prices) down the road?

    ReplyDelete
  3. About Pizzagate:

    Lisa Richards has invested in Margate, provided some much needed employment and trade. Whereas Councillor Driver has ......?

    I wish Lisa Richards well and so should Driver. Hot air will not fuel Margate's recovery. We need more Lisa Richards and fewer Councillor Drivers.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Here here well said that man Councillor Driver is as always full of hot air

      Delete
  4. build the tesco,s anything will make that sea front look more modern stuck back in the days of tony savage and he,s organ at the lido oh ya turner centre the saviour of margate do not think so do,nt believe the hype

    ReplyDelete
  5. The Turner Contemporary has never claimed to be the saviour of Margate, its one part of a jigsaw puzzle of investment, and its doing pretty well.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The TC itself is doing wellnumber but I dont see any fall in the unemployment figure for the area. Many of the footfalls are there to ue the toilets and the cafe.
      With councils and the Art council being short of funds I think it about time to charge an entrance fee to make it self financing rather than costing the £2 millions a year to run.

      Delete
  6. There is one piece missing from the jig saw puzzle that is vision

    ReplyDelete
  7. Vision isn't missing hmm, the vision is to regenerate Margate and Thanet, and as the Anon said before Turner Contemporary plays a part, as does Dreamland and the smaller businesses that have sprung up.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It's a shame the massively grant-aided "vision" concentrates only on Turner, Dreamland and the Old Town and ignores the greater reality of Cliftonville, the High Streets and the rest of Thanet.

      Delete
    2. I've been saying for a while now that the place should be rebranded "Margate and Cliftonville" (similar to "Brighton and Hove"), perhaps even renaming Margate station.

      Delete
    3. I think the hope was always that regeneration of Margate would rub off on Cliftonville... Fingers crossed.

      Delete
  8. Oh no no no Peter, We Cliftonville folk can't be getting too chummy with the Margate locals. One must keep a sense of proportion you know.

    ReplyDelete

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.