This week’s exhibition lasts until Wednesday
and I will use the pictures of the paintings to illustrate this post.
I am still working my way through the books
in my secondhand bookshop on the mammoth task of ensuring that are prices are
less than the online prices. At the moment I am working backwards through English
history, so I guess there is a trail of bargains in my wake.
A lot of mixed views about Saturday’s air
show, here is their facebook page https://www.facebook.com/groups/132490563573127/?fref=ts
some comments about the lack of traffic management. The media are certainly
slating the parking and traffic management, obviously something went seriously
wrong.
I am pretty sure the organisers said they
had pre sold about 30k tickets and it seems that quite a few people who had
paid for tickets spent most of the show time in a traffic jam.
Who was to blame?
The organiser seems to have little experience of airshows. Traffic jams from 10am is hardly organised. The safety standards worse. Mickey Mouse Manston is yet again ruining the area. The sooner it's closed and arrests are made at Infratil and TDC the better.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous 4:38 pm,
ReplyDeleteOut of interest, who do you envisage being arrested and for what crime?
Secondly, I should be grateful to hear of your own experience of running Air Shows; or indeed of running anything else other than that for a bus.
I was going to comment but sadly I have no experience of running an airshow either so I assume John would also dismiss my concerns. Ho hum...
ReplyDeleteanonymous 5:04 pm,
ReplyDeleteThe possibility that I might challenge your concerns does not preclude your airing them.
Anonymous 5:04 pm,
ReplyDeleteMy argument with 4:38 was solely about his vexatious cry to have people arrested every time something displeases him. I hope that you are not him.
I did not go to the airshow. I hear that the display was excellent, and the traffic management bad. I take little notice of anything on Facebook. Instead it would be good to have a fair and helpful traffic report. I suppose park and rides would help, but where to put them?
I feel sorry for the KLM passenger(s) promised a care free experience. Did they make it in time?
ReplyDeleteAnonymouse 5:39,
DeleteI understand that KLM passengers were not delayed - much to your dismay.
When you consider that there will probably be more people attending the Preston Steam event on the Wingham bends next week it makes you wonder how they could have messed it up so badly. The info I am getting suggests there was just a total failure on the car parks front, as people turned up by car there was simply nowhere to go.
ReplyDeletethe points being raised by people commenting on various arenas were as follows.
Delete1. the one main route in up the Thanet way wasn't able to cope with the volume
2. the signposting was bad
3. the stewards were untrained and abysmal
4. very poor directing of vehicles onto the car parks available
5. Lack of coordination by traffic police
6. when police realised they had 9 miles of backed up traffic they left them to it.
Hopefully lessons will be learnt
Having often attended the Preston Rally and even had a stand there, as well as the Manston Airshow, I can assure you Michael there were far more people at the Manston Airshow, not that I would wish to spoil a good old Thanet whinge.
DeleteSo did the airshow bring any extra people into Ramsgate or any of the other towns?
ReplyDeleteEr, no, they were all stuck in traffic or waiting for buses at ramsgate station, or at the airshow.
DeleteWith talented know it all like John Holyer around, makes you wonder why we still have diseases, have not reached the stars or can't turn chalk into gold.
Anonymouse 3:33 pm,
DeleteOh Come, come, do not put yourself down - you are very talented and knowledgeable. I hear that you have dozens of books in your library and have finished colouring most of them.
The good thing about leaving events like the airshow to a commercial interest like the airport is that they have to take the flack when it all goes wrong, and they have to deal with the angry customers and compensation claims. People will learn from this experience and won't come again. This will be of no consequence to Thanet because most of those people drove in, watched the airshow and then, drove home again. You wonder how they run an airport when they can't organise a car-park. I'm just glad that no taxpayers' money was wasted on this nonsense. Hopefully, they'll think twice before offering to run it again next year.
ReplyDeleteIt was not the car park or the airshowe that was the problem but the traffic congestion on the roads coming into Thanet from outside. That said, all big events attract traffic and it is only to be expected. I went, enjoyed it and will go again if it returns.
DeleteAnonymous 7:30,
DeleteYour delight in the misfortunes of others is repugnant. You are a spiteful little man. No doubt you take that as a compliment
Well said Mr Holyer. I have yet to go to an airshow that didn't suffer from traffic congestion. Was a great show and a great day out for me and the family :)
DeleteWell said 7:30 the Airshow reflects badly on Thanet. 9 mile tailbacks for several hours is shambolic planning. Let's hope this amateurish farce is cancelled. How it ever got permission with overflights of the towns banned is astonishing. Heads must roll.
DeleteAnd did TDC provide funding (or even Visit Kent's £100k?) - we seem to have contradictory statements on that.
Usual bollicks from you, 10:33. You were not there, know nothing other than some news reports which always highlight the down side and everything you ever produce is coloured by your intense hatred of the Manston airfield. Why, Michael, puts up with you is beyond me for you are ruining what was once a reasonable debating forum.
DeleteThat's right 10:44 the scathing BBC and ITV news reports got it wrong and there weren't massive traffic jams, the organisers refunding tickets etc etc so obviously that's good news for the rest of Thanet for future visitors. You're either a twit or Charles Buchanan.
DeleteYes there were traffic problems on some routes, but there always are for big events. The trouble with the news media is it always likes to highlight the bad news as it is more ratings friendly. I was at the show by car from home in Broadstairs in twenty minutes and back home afterwards in half an hour.
DeleteYou are just a Manston hater and, since your predictions of burnings failed to materialise, you have to fall back on traffic jams. What a sad specimen you are living a miserable hate filled existence. Here's hoping Manston well outlives you.
Anonymouse 10:33,
DeleteI notice that you are talking to yourself again - you post and then reply to yourself.
If heads are to roll then I suggest they start with yours. You would not miss it. For you are living proof that man can live without a brain. I don't know what makes you so stupid, but it really works.
It really does depend on the car park - and the plan for getting cars off of the public road. A rough assessment of the car parking at Manston suggests it is approximately twice the size of that at Preston. The Manson event claimed attendance of about the same in one day as Preston gets spread over two.
ReplyDeleteThus, assuming Manston's parking was not over full, the traffic problem on the A299 was caused by the wave effect of the cars stopped at the entrance to the car park, rippling back all the way to the end of the queue. It's a recognized phenomenon on motorways - those jams which appear to have no cause when you get to the end of them!
At Preston, whilst the approach roads are all single carriageway, the visitors approach from three main directions (Canterbury, Dover or Thanet)then filter gradually into a one way system into the car park. Here they are cleared rapidly from the entrance, thus maintaining the flow.
All events affecting the public highway are required to advise KCC Highways - usually through the Local Authority Safety Advisory Group - and provide a traffic management plan. The direction signs to Manston suggest that this must have been done and that KCC deemed that the main roads were adequate for the predicted attendance.
Whilst much could have been done to split the traffic flow, in the end what really matters is how quickly you get the cars off of the road.
Anonymouse 11:38 pm,
DeleteThank you for such a clear and helpful explanation.
Manston is never going to be successful regional airport
ReplyDeleteAn out of town retail park will close shops in nearby town centres
A large supermarket in said towns will finish off a few more
A brutalist tower block on the seafront is probably not a good idea
Giving away leases in prime spots to a company that has been economical with the truth is probably misguided at best
Allowing another company to secretly not pay their bills for over 2 years doesn't help
Having a council leader jailed is a pretty rare event, but was not a surprise to anyone
Allowing big houses to be turned into bedsits will come back to haunt you
A seaside towns best asset is its beside the sea
Scruffy towns/streets/houses attract scruffy people
Having ambition to be a politician should bar you from ever becoming one
If being a councillor is about people putting something back into the community, why do they get paid for it?
What do you do for happiness, 3:49. Indeed, if it is bad as you say why don't you top yourself?
DeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
DeleteMichael, your censorship is becoming ridiculous. You delete my comment which was a reply to 4:32 in the same terminology after he accused Peter and I of having our heads stuck in our arses. Presumably it is OK for him to use the word but not me in response.
DeleteAlso recently you encouraged Ian Driver to report a blogger to the police for allegedly threatening another anonymous blogger. Some poor sod could get a police caution and a record out of that. On top you continue to indulge the insidious 'aquifer man' who insults everybody with his ageist comments as well as dismissing all and sundry as stupid. Even you have said he is trying to close your blog down and he is certainly driving people away.
Anyway, this kind of one sided censorship is not on, but it is your blog and clearly I am not one of the favoured.
Anons offensive language isn't allowed here
Delete6.49 I administer the comments from my mobile, zapping anything that seems offensive from the comment moderation page, if you want a blog with no one moderating it I suggest you start one, it doesn’t cost anything.
DeleteI think today there were about 150 unsuitable comments, some were commercial spam, some contained obscenities, one accused a local business of being connected with the EDL, frankly I have neither the time or the interest to read them all properly.
The key here is if you keep references to your arse out of comments, then they won’t get deleted, there is no way of getting them back when they have gone.
As for the Aquifer man, he is just another anonymous competitor, they all look the same to me and frankly I take very little notice of most anonymous comments, get yourself a blogger id and I may give your comments a second glance. Post under your real identity linked to a real and known person like Ian Driver and I will take what you say seriously.
I commented on Michael's rather silly view of the 7am start at Manston and water pollution and that too was censored.
DeleteSoon only JH and the other JH will be left and this blog a backwater.
It will become one if you stay with your boring thread changes and blatant dismissal of everyone else as stupid or senile.
DeleteAnoymouse 9:47 am,
DeleteI bet you'll still be here though.
Sadly, so will you.
ReplyDeleteAnonymouse 6:54 pm,
ReplyDeleteI certainly will be here, if only to watch you posting to yourself under assorted anonymice.