The local book business seems to go in waves, with not many
selling for a while and then suddenly every other customer in my bookshop seems
to be after a local book.
As we print them all here, this triggers book production,
which is mostly down to me stapling them together and sorting out individual
customers needs, so I haven’t got very far with my new book about the Ramsgate
fishing smacks.
There isn’t much money in the local books because of the
price of printer ink, it would be much cheaper to go to an outside printer if
only we didn’t have so many titles. Spending a thousand or so on having a book
printed is much cheaper, mostly because a run of books over about 400 would use
conventional ink rather than the much more expensive laser ink. However
spending a few thousand on each of the 150 local books that I publish
would need an investment of hundreds of thousands of pounds, which I just don’t
have.
My research about the local fishing industry has lead me to
believe that The Smack Boys Home may have been built in the hope of dealing
with a shortage of smack boys rather than for the philanthropic reasons I had
first thought.
Any ideas on this would be helpful at the moment.
The maritime museum has closed for the winter, the absence
of any of the promised summer events was a bit of a blow, this seems to have
been partly down to the council’s events team and partly down to a lack of
enthusiasm on the part of the trust that has taken over the museum.
The word is that the council are asking more than two months
advance notice from events organisers and then only giving the very short
notice, just before the event date that the event can take place.
The councils new website is quite something, click on the
snapshot of their homepage to expand, I just went there to see if the webcast
of last Thursday’s council meeting had appeared yet, clicked on what looked
like the picture link, only to find it lead to a lot of guff about the council
not allowing meetings to be filmed.
Another link on their homepage caught my eye, it says “I am
no great art lover but this is such a superb piece of Daliesque art” Customer
Eastleigh in Hampshire.
Apart from the word Daliesque which would seem to have a bit
of a limited use among those who are not great art lovers, one does wonder do
TDC have a lot customes in Eastleigh in Hampshire.
The other end of the structure, the arched bit at the Broadstairs end looks to be fairly ok and I didn’t get as far as the brick bit next to Augusta Stairs, so I don’t know the situation there.
The Pav is still looking very sad, the word is
still that Weatherspoons want a bit more than half of it to turn into one of
their pubs and that negotiations between them, Rank, the leaseholder and TDC
the freeholder are ongoing.
Both of the working slipways are being used and I decided not to put in an objection to the development there on the grounds that as TDC have put in for funding for a new much bigger boat lift that would be likely to put the existing slipway operator out of business.
The Dreamland appeal has been turned down, so the final
legal obstacle has gone and hopefully the council can get on with getting Dreamland
open again.
I have just been down to the main sands area in Ramsgate
where things are not looking so good, the harbour end of the Pleasurama cliff façade
has got increased bulging in some of the panels, I for one wouldn’t like to
work under them, let alone have my home built adjacent to them.
The other end of the structure, the arched bit at the Broadstairs end looks to be fairly ok and I didn’t get as far as the brick bit next to Augusta Stairs, so I don’t know the situation there.
Both of the working slipways are being used and I decided not to put in an objection to the development there on the grounds that as TDC have put in for funding for a new much bigger boat lift that would be likely to put the existing slipway operator out of business.
I think there are a lot more people from Eastleigh come to Margate than you would imagine, Michael. Why, with our modern road networks and the excellent M25, it is a mere hop for a day out!
ReplyDeleteGenerally the world of Thanet blogging is very quiet this morning with an almost total absence of activity. No snappy one liners from Peter C, no new scandal to expose from Ian D and no more gun fights down the Birchington coral. Made me wonder if I had somehow missed the end of the world until I picked up your latest post.
Can't help on the Smack Boys I'm afraid, more Solo Gay.s scene than mine (only joking SG honest), but wish you the best of luck with your research.
William I still wonder why TDC would have customers in Hampshire.
DeleteI guess I post often because I can type quickly and the camera on my phone automatically puts the pictures I have taken on the internet, so I don’t have to wait for them to upload, hence a post most days.
You are right about the lack of activity, onl;y a post from Superham who has posted to the effect that James, Ian Driver and Peter are all wrong all the time and as some of them have to be right some of the time, the post makes for pretty tedious reading, short as it is. I guess unless Superham has a dialogue with himself, there aren’t likely to be many comments, not a lot one can say.
Not so long ago there would have been a reasonable dialogue on the local blogs about the recent council meeting, from some of the TDC councillors, now I guess if they say anything about anything, the threats of legal action, standards complaints and plain old bile, mean the won’t do it again and who can blame them.
I have suspected for some time that you may have a sense of humour, I hope it doesn’t get you into too much trouble.
Perhaps it is the loss of the ability to laugh at ourselves, particularly with so many groups now to offend, that is killing off debate, but who knows. So far my sense of humour has not got me into too much trouble, but I am conscious of the potential for misinterpretation, deliberate or otherwise. I have also noted that some folk take lighthearted comment too seriously or try to read too much into it. They must live in a sad world. Who knows, maybe debate will pick up as we approach May 2015 though probably the usual party rhetoric will dominate. At least the divide is beginning to show with Ed M dumping the Blairites and David C trying to sound like a Conservative. We may just be able to tell the difference soon!
DeleteI have always made it point to take neither life nor myself too seriously. This attitude has helped me survive some nasty moments.
Deletelol Michael "superham"
DeleteFunny how the little things can amuse. I am still giggling at saga louts.
DeletePresumably the worst of those nasty moments, John, was no chips for a whole three days. Those that did not serve just would not imagine the hardships like discovering, after the resupply chopper had left, that they had not unloaded the case of beer.
There were no boys around for me to smack today (I am sure there is a post there somewhere William), so I made do with a pleasant lunch at the Holy Trinity Cafe with my partner's brother and his wife, followed by a walk around Northdown Park. I can do normal if I try!
ReplyDeleteNow that sounds good, SG, the lunch at Holy Trinity and the walk round Northdown Park, I mean. Super day for it, of course, but how much longer can this weather last?
DeleteThink you missed the partner's brother bit, Peter, but with the new law does a wife have to be female? "I now declare you man and wife" takes on a whole new slant and who wears the white dress? The mind boggles, but at least old luvvie Dave C has admitted he got it wrong for the poor dear never realised there was so much opposition to it in his own party. Just shows how really out of touch and deaf to the minions politicians are.
I've been doing some research on the Sailor's Church, and I'd think your conclusions are very likely, Michael.
ReplyDeleteThe smack home seems to me to have been more like an apprentice hostel than anything else. If there was a philanthropic aspect, it was the care that was offered by the Harbour Mission to the seamen who had been rescued from their sinking ships (which appeared to be a regualr occurance). Until quite late on, the Smack Boys home was listed as a different operation to the harbour mission in the trade directories.
By the way, I did some research on one of the Horace Bowler, who was one of the harbour missionaries, and the history of the harbour mission - see here http://joetnr.net/?p=35
ReplyDeleteThanks for that Joe, incidentally Addington Street was I think renumbered in the late 1800s so I don't think the numbers are the same as in some of the Victorian directories, which means you may be venerating the wrong building.
ReplyDeletegood luck Peter is that the London Brighton done the trip 3X last occasions ruptured Cruciate ligament
ReplyDeletesomething to read from the Guardian http://www.theguardian.com/science/occams-corner/2013/oct/08/online-comments-anonymity-cowardice?CMP=twt_gu
ReplyDeleteThere was I thinking that exploring the toxic underworld was actually reading the Guardian!
ReplyDeleteHi Michael - I am glad that the idiots that were critizing the state of repair of your shop and others in King Street appear to have moved on.
ReplyDeleteJust who do you think you are fooling, 10:11? You are the idiot, there were no others, and your comment is simply intended to raise the matter again. We are not all as thick as you.
DeleteAnon 10.11 in the future your rather bizarre comments will be treated like the ones containing 0% and firing ranges as spam.
DeleteI think that more dangerous that anon posting, which is of course tedious, and something I refuse to allow on my blog, is unchallenged bullshit and lies, peddled as truth. That of course has to be challenged at all times.
ReplyDeleteMichael, how magnanimous of you to not object about a worthwhile development, as it seems they have made a good case, and as you seem to have tried to set yourself up as some kind of arbiter of what should or shouldn't be built in Thanet, the developers must be happy to know they will just now have to deal with the rest of the worthless Thanet nimbys.
Well done to Thanet's most prolific whiner.
Whine, me, no cheggers, I support the redevelopment of Thanet, I don't attempt to frustrate it at every turn.
DeleteI can't ever remember seeing you post a picture that could be described as quality either cheggers ;)
Well that’s me thoroughly put in my place by Superham. The last two planning applications here I objected to on two grounds.
Delete1 That no development should go ahead on the slipways site without first ascertaining what the effect on the commercial viability of the harbour would be, little things beneath your concern like would the windfarm operators stay here without the slipways.
2 That the person doing the flood risk assessment had made the mistake of taking the meaning mean high tide to be maximum high tide, a little thing I know and far below the consideration of a superhero, but as part of the first designs was new accommodation for the sea scouts, the emergency escape for this accommodation being under water during spring tides, I thought it a valid reason for objection.
This time around they seem to have covered the problems by removing the sea scout accommodation altogether and not publishing a detailed FRA.
I have my doubts that a new cradle will be able lift the wind farm cats on the basis of “never mind the quality feel the width” but I am pretty sure it will put the slipways operator out of business.
Frankly I have objected to very few developments about 3 in the last 30 years I think, the main one being Pleasurama, mainly on the grounds that the building was too large to fit in the available space.
A strait question on that one, how far will the Pleasurama development stick above the cliff if it is built to the current plans?
Oh if only you would stay there instead of engaging in irrelevant pedantry.
Delete1. Were you going to somehow force the operator of the disused slipways to somehow bring them back into use for work that doesn't exist, and thus in some magical way force the operator to lose money until your irrelevant investigation (and obviously an utterly irrelevant flood risk assessment) can be completed, for you then to object to on some tiny point of pedantic minutia ...
2. oh, should have read point 2, before dealing with point 1, as a flood risk assessment (which you would obviously find fault with) was as certain as sunrise. Well done pedant king, you have cost the seascouts a home, rejoice!
Oh you do yourself a dis service my pedant king. Pleasurama, Granville and the slipways and they are only the ones i know about, and none for valid reasons.
I used to know the answer to that, but it became utterly irrelevant some years ago, hence, I have no idea, and I care even less.
I wasn't aware that when you buy a piece of land, the sky above it is somehow restricted to you. Moreover, you seem to think that although the area above your land is not under your control, but sky above someone else's is, and that somehow, people have a right to a nice view! How perverse.
Sadly, developers are becoming less and less common in Thanet, largely due to you my pedant king, nimbys, and the usual whine at anything suspects. It's teh same where ever you look, from Ramsgate Port, to Arlington tower.
Thanet is dying on it's arse, and unless the usual suspects are finally put in their place, and dismissed finished, not through TDC, but through the incessant efforts of nimbys, pedants and people determined to live in the 50's and whine because nobody else does, If I had money to invest in a town, would I try and do it in Thanet right now, not a hope in hell! I'd go somewhere where they WANT progress, and to live in the 21st century.
And so superham speaks and all his minions bow down and grovel. what a plonker Hamilton is. Go back under your bridge troll
DeleteJohn I guess the underlying problem you have is considering that everyone is wrong apart from any developer who happens to want to build anything.
DeleteThe flood risk on the slipways was just a mistake, freely admitted by the chap who made it, something I discussed with the developer who conceded it was back to the drawing board.
There isn’t much point in building sub aqua sea scout accommodation as they wouldn’t have been allowed to use it.
With the slipways the site is owned by the council and leased by the slipways operator, who has sold part of the lease to the developer. A condition of the lease, always has been and still is, that the site shall be used only as a boat repair site.
Now if having this site used as a boat repair site is essential to the economic viability of the rest of the harbour, which generates a considerable income to the council, then yes it is important.
If the council are going down the road of replacing most of the slipways work with a boat hoist, then the key questions relate to the capacity that the hoist doesn’t replace. Mainly, will the new hoist be abele to lift the windfarm cats out for repairs? Will the windfarm operators stay if they can’t get their boats out of the water here? I don’t know the answers, do you? At the moment there is often a long term job on the main slipway which will still be usable after the development and a windfarm cat on the one that will have very limited usage after the development.
With Pleasurama I had always assumed that the height issue was due to a mistake by the architect, you seem to be saying that the plans were to deliberately build it higher than the cliff, is this correct?
God no cheggers, apart from laughing at the piss poor quality, my stomach couldn't take more than the first page.
DeleteNot at all Michael, my issue is that you seem to think you are the aribter of any all all development, on any grounds you so choose. I wonder if you would welcome the slipway operator scrutinising your bookshop, and objecting to anything you would like to change, purely on his opinion of the way he believe your business should be run...
I have no idea, I didn't design them, but my point remains equally valid. It's a perverse view that development should be utterly dictated by what people think of the view, and how tall they think someone else should be able to build on their own land! If that were taken to it's logical conclusion, nothing would ever get built, but then, that would no doubt make you VERY happy.
Having just been reading on Thanetonline and thinking about the L.C.D. of our mutual Spammy I am just consolidating my thoughts.
Deletehamilton has been posting on and off for 10 months (and maybe before without much effect on folks) and what has been the LCD (lowest common denominator) has been his vociferous hatred of what he considers to be nimbys. He has attacked people all over the Isle but they have always been people he considers to be holding back the development of the Island. The 2 people that do not match that type of attack are Driver and Worrow but they have been considered to be fair game due to their media presence.
So with all that in mind I am considering that hamilton isn't just one person but a small group of would-be developers who have, in the past, have had their efforts to develop knocked back by so-called NIMBYS who have stopped them from making money in the way they want by causing delays to their schemes.
Looking now at when he posts and where he posts it would be inconceivable to be the work of a loner as the language and the access points change depending on who is hamilton at the time.
From an FB perspective it is possible that 2 or 3 real people are logged into the same FB profile and they could take turns in posting to the same profile the only difference would be "posted from mobile" appearing or not if it is a computer or tablet as happened last night on a FB group.
I would imagine by the language we are looking at a group of hamilton's aged between 35-45 but that isn't conclusive . thoughts please
Anonymous 5:59 pm,
DeleteOr on the other hand it could be the work of a single person.
No, I reckon he is a sheep farmer who hates Driver for stopping him live exporting from Ramsgate which was really convenient. He has no time for Worrow, but, apart from Worrow himself, who does? As for the NIMBYs well, think about it, anyone who has followed Thanet's blogs for any length of time will be aware that the same small group have objected to everything that was ever proposed and, if they haven't succeeded in screwing things completely, have delayed them resulting in increased costs to the poor old Thanetians. Who wouldn't attack them?
DeleteAfter that consolidated thought, 5:59, strongly recommend you have a lie down before you do yourself a mischief. Before you go though, just who are you and why shouldn't people be equally interested in your motivation?
John the strangeness concerning the posting comes from looking at his times of posting both on blogs and on Facebook. Most normal folks need their sleep else they cannot function. the language is more difficult as that can be faked.
DeleteLike Peter, I'm starting to wonder if "John" is just ECR being mischievous / conducting some kind of social experiment. Nobody could be that obnoxious and ridiculous in real life, surely.
DeleteAll a bit strange really as I very seldom object to developments and most of my development posts here relate to major developments on publicly owned land that have the potential to impact on the local community as a whole.
DeleteI find it amusing that Superham should think that what I say here has a major impact on what does or doesn’t get developed, perhaps he thinks that what he says here will also have a major impact on local developments.
With the slipways development, I was, - after all - only saying why I hadn’t objected to it.
Thank you 5:59, quite the biggest belly laugh I've had since James claimed to have posted a fact, and cheggers claimed to be a photographer.
DeleteIn your role are pendant king, are you happy that you and your friends have consigned Thanet to the scrap heap, simply looking back at when people with vision and money were welcomed, not chased away by small people with small minds, while their surroundings turned to crap through their own fault...
Nice to see, that at least with the slipways, you're input was irrelevant, unwelcome and not wanted by anyone.
ECR & John Hamilton do have a similar blunt style.
DeleteI don't suffer fools. I have been accused of being half of TDC in the last few days, I'll just add ECR to the list :)
DeleteWhat about him...
DeleteAs I haven't as yet come across him or been subjected to any of his objections, I have as yet to have an issue with him cheggers, As I have told you many times, I am not a serial protester, hence i don;t go searching for things to be offended by ;)
And what? Does he then go onto produce reams of lies and bullshit on the subject somewhere? Should I have trawled any and all articles on Tescos, and commented on each and every one? Oh cheggers, your life maybe that empty, happily mine isn't ;)
DeleteRead it, very interesting 2 year old link, and what? As I have said many times, I don't seek people to be offended by, and as this guy hasn't appeared on my radar, isn't a bandwagon jumper, and doesn't appear to have hoodwinked some voters, i really don;t see why he would appear on my radar.
DeleteIs he a woman as you suggest cheggers? I know some of the "women" you photograph resemble dockers, but Mr Flaig appears to be a guy....
I'm not really concerned with the opinion of a failed doorman, who now tries his hand at wanna be pornography. Worrow is simply a laughable one trick pony, who nobody has taken seriously for sometime, much like you cheggers ;)
Perhaps I should seek out EVERYONE who doesn't agree with me on every subject, and comment to them ALL individually? I have better things to do cheggers, clearly you don't ;)
DeleteAnd what my poor lil failed pornographer? I couldn't really care less if he flipped burgers...
DeleteHas he dragged TDC off into a pointless court case, costing many £1000's, does he spout bullshit all over the web, clearly not cheggers. Happily he didn't get elected, probably why he doesn;t appear on my radar, but even better for Thanet, neither did oldfield, or driver at KCC election time. Happily, Thanet will soon be rid of driver in any position of power, lets hope that some other poor town sparkles brighter for oldfield aswell.
Once again my precious lil mucky pic hawker, why do you think i would care what a failed doorman thinks my household situation might be, how perverse. I leave you to take your mucky pictures cheggers, god knows you have to get your jollies somewhere ;)
DeleteFailure, as in you're a failed doorman cheggers, hence why you are off to take mucky pictures, that nobody cares about, and will never seek out. Off you trot cheggers, i'm sure the poor dear you are about to take money from has spent long enough scraping the barrel, and shouldn't be delayed any further.
DeleteUnlike you cheggers, I don't feel I have anything to prove, especially to a failed doorman turned wanna be pornographer ;)
DeleteYou want a laugh cheggers, here's one for you,
Delete- you take good and professional pictures of of attractive women -
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Yea right!
What a strange person Sir Spam-a-lot is. This is better than a Monty Python episode
DeleteDear oh dear Superham, has Mrs Ham has locked up the old Kryptonite?
DeleteIf you aren’t used to women without their clothes on and find that you can’t think properly when looking at them, then go and look at the photos on one of Peter’s other blogs.
Now I can understand criticism, bad lighting, wrong depth of field and so on, but the bad bad bad mantra with no qualification, suggests that it is you who can’t tell a good photo from a bad one and not a problem with the quality of Peter’s photography.
According to one worthy guess merchant, Mrs Ham's name is Gill or, to give her the full title, Gillingham.
DeleteI really do wonder at grown men getting their knickers in such a twist over someone's identity as everyone seems to with John Hamilton. We have suffered some pretty insidious anonymous trolls for years, some who insulted total strangers without cause and others who destroy debate with repetitive one liners about 0% and fines. Add the conspirators and masons under the bed lot and, to me at least, there seem far worse infectors of blog sites than JH who targets real people he disagrees with and will argue his cause.
I hear those that say bad language defeats his argument, but think about that. If you call an idiot an idiot, is the statement any less true because you call him a f***ing idiot. Might not be polite, but it is invalid.
Oh, and before someone attacks me, I am not supporting JH, but simply wondering why so many people spend so much time guessing who he is. He must be ruffling some feathers somewhere.
Sadly my pedant king, comparing cheggers's poor attempt at pornography to quality art would be like comparing your shop to WH Smith.
DeleteI do have to laugh William, I forget how many people I've been over the last few days, everyone from the leader of the council, to someone that isn't even a councilor.
Seems they don't like people who simply get it right, and post 100% correct facts, exposing those who wouldn;t know a fact if it smacked them in the face :)
I wonder when Sir Spamalot will post his 1st real fact?
DeleteThat works cheggers as
DeleteA. nobody has heard of you
B. nobody who see's you 5th rate wanna be porn will ever consider giving you money for it
C. What you consider to be lots of money is unlikely to actually be anything close to a "lot" of anything.
6:16, see 3 points above ;)
Hamilton
Deletea) as cheggers said you have heard of him and that is one more than nobody
b) as you have no idea whether cheggers makes money or not that is your opinion not a "fact"
c) see (b) above again your opinion
post some real facts not just your opinionated and jaundiced views
Superham factuality in this instance may not be actuality, as a humble bookshop assistant my aspirations to become WH Smith are probably about the same a waiter in a small gourmet restaurant wishing to become Ronald Macdonald.
DeleteSorry pendant king, but a FAR more accurate analogy for you would be someone running a greasy spoon thinking they were running the Savoy, ending up on Kitchen nightmares, and telling Gordon Ramsey he doesn;t know what he's talking about, whilst standing in squalor :)
Delete11:00, there is a vast difference between knowing cheggers, and ridiculing his piss poor 5th wanna be porn, and having "heard of him:. I fear you belong to the BJ school of having no clue what a fact might be ;)
Superham, not really sure if running a greasy spoon would be a step up or down from a shop assistant, nor where secondhand bookshops come into the scheme of things.
DeleteI have spent most of the last two days working on rolls, the patent and close rolls, so there is some relationship with a greasy spoon.
Lets hope you have more success with that than you have recently trying to define the meaning of anonymous pedant king.
DeleteQuiet again this morning with little happening around the principle blogs. No new posts to excite the masses and little or no activity on the existing items.
ReplyDeleteWhatever one's view on John Hamilton, at least his comments tend to bring folk out of the woodwork to protest and can sometimes spark a debate.
Elsewhere, since Barry's link to the Guardian, I see that the new head of MI5 has stated that that newspaper's exposure of GCHQ activities, on the evidence of a whistle blower, seriously undermined our national security. When one gets into the realms of spying and keeping tabs on extremists too much transparency, the perpetual cry of the Guardianista, leaves our side at a distinct disadvantage. Security is dependent on not letting potential opposition know what you are doing, bit like not showing your hand at poker, and those that demand an end to state secrets play into the hands of our enemies.
Elsewhere, keep peddling Peter and digging out the fishing history Michael.
Kent Chief constable announces retirement
DeleteI think William that "Our side" has always enjoyed a distinct advantage in not letting an enemy know what we are doing. Genius method. We simply don't know what we are doing ourselves. Throughout history enemies have always assumed this was part of a cunning English disinformation strategy.
Half a century ago, in the beloved Army, we were briefed by an SAS warrant officer. "I have grave news lads. The Command has both identified a threat and come up with a plan of interdiction. My task is to convey the threat analysis and the plan to yourselves. So f-ck off on a NAAFI break whilst I re-write it with the indefensible aim of keeping you all alive and the worthy aim of defining the threat and defeating her Majestys' dastardly enemies".
Presumably at some point he reported to the command that the plan was working. They then wrote up their plan as doctrine for future officer training. And a whole new generation of enemy confusion was thus ensured.
Strangely enough, Rick, during Cold War days the Soviets had the most respect for the British Secret Service and our intelligence record in WWII was pretty good as well.
DeleteMind you, with the do-gooders and lefties that have infiltrated our political system in more modern times and a sizeable fifth column whose first loyalty is not to this country, one wonders what chance we would have in 'keeping mum' today.
Note the chief constable is retiring and it does seem that the days of long serving chiefs are history. Now it seems to be the step before retirement unless moving on to Met Commissioner. Mind you, would you want the job with some funny old elected biddy telling you how to run your police force?
I agree about PCCs. IMO it is yet another dangerous attack on the constitutional stability afforded us by Crown Authority.
DeleteI think Sir Richard Dannatt (St Lawrence OB) has also seen the writing on the wall as he rightly made very clear the constitutional position of the British Army.
In WW2 we were helped immensely by Hans Ferdinand Meyer through the inspiring efforts of Cobden Turner. Engineers.
Also having the Head of the Abwehr on our side helped a tad.
Where we might part company is that I think the Soviet (and their backing of OIRA) did not have to target the likes of MI5. There was more mileage in our trades unions and in the private intelligence organisations who acted for the City of London and UK large employers. Certainly after the expulsion of 105 or so soviet "diplomats" in 1970 (?) there was an exercise in questions are more revealing than answers. The assumption being, I guess, the IRA "Assets gaining knowledge of use to the Soviet" would have been given a higher level of question to deploy ? So if we knew who the IRA assets in England were (picking up scuttlebutt on things like Cobra Mist) then leave them alone and monitor what they were looking at after the expulsions of the soviet spying capacity >
Where I came into conflict was that such an OIRA asset became subject of my duties as a sworn constable. That is Crown duty versus Official Secrets Act. And we were briefed if such a conflict arose then the oath of duty direct to the Queen (The constable oath) must take precedence.
Because in the final analysis it is the constitutional monarchy we swore to defend. And why I wrote that ? It is because that is the same conflict that PCCs create for every Chief constable. A constable is an independent ministerial officer of the Crown. They are charged with duties and their only order is by way of crown authority by warrant from judiciary. other than judiciary no one can direct a constable in his duty. He is criminally answerable ALONE for the discharge of his duties to the Queen. In the discharge of duty he bends his knee to no man save judge in open court. That includes not bending the knee to MI5. And it should include making an irrelevance of PCCs.
During the war...
DeleteVery sarcastic, 8:30, but what war are you prattling on about. Rick above is discussing the constitutional position of a constable and the conflict with this that the appointment of Police Commissioners creates. It is nothing to do with war though has a bearing on police operations against terrorist which is very current. Obviously you have limited reading skills and even less understanding.
DeleteUncle Albert,
DeleteIn your case the Bore War.
How do you know it's Rick 5:41, unless you're Rick also?
DeleteThen again, perhaps I'm Rick too, who knows?!
Anyone who doesn't recognise the comments of Rick, under whatever alias he uses, needs to go to Specsavers.
DeleteThe Grauniad has compromised the GCHQ product and damaged our security as a result.
ReplyDeleteIn the past I have at times worked closely with GCHQ. At what they do there is none better anywhere in the world. We are lucky to have them. They keep us safe. However, due the nature of its work GCHQ is the most vulnerable of all the Intelligence agencies. Here is one example of this. During the 80's GCHQ had invested much money, time and brain power in cracking the Argentinian Military codes. Then, at the time of the Falklands war, a British MP stood up in Parliament and announced that we had been reading Argentinian signals for years. Consequently, the Argentinians immediately changed their codes.
GCHQ are hunting down the nasty people. I do not doubt for one minute that they could hack my computer should they wish to do. And the best of luck to them. There is nothing that I do which could possibly trouble GCHQ.
Nasty as in blowing people up or chopping off heads, not telling some local media whore that he is a media whore. Peter, don't take it all so seriously and you are possibly right about some ECR connection. It has long amused me how some Eastcliff regular commentators get their knickers in a twist about Hamilton being anonymous whilst discounting the fact that so is ECR.
ReplyDeletePeter,
ReplyDeleteRelax, help could be on its way for I hear that your hunt for John Hamilton is the talk of Cheltenham. Or is it your photos that attract them.
Sorry Peter, I thought you knew that GCHQ is based in Cheltenham. The reference to your photos was a sort of joke and not an insult. The idea of the might of GCHQ mounting a sigint attack on your activities with your models tickled me. On other occasions I just like playing with words which is better, I suppose, than playing with myself.
DeleteGCHQ is at Cheltenham
DeletePeter,
DeleteWhen I was with the Embassy in Budapest a British film crew turned up to make a film about Nijinsky. This divided our staff into two separate groups: there were those that talked to the crew about the ballet dancer and those that talked about the race horse. It turned out to be the ballet dancer, of whom I had never heard and was firmly in the horse group.
Not Alexander Korda films by any chance John ? Bit of an insider joke there for you.
DeletePeter,
ReplyDeleteIt could be that too.The John Hamilton Stakes would present several hurdles and possibly end in a photo finish. Yeah, alright I'll have my Ovaltine, stop horsing around a go to bed.
Hypocrisy seems to be something that is VERY prevalent in Thanet.
ReplyDeleteHammy is subject of a bet as you probably know. So the John Hamilton Stakes already exists. There is a one in three chance, according to the odds psychology, of his conduct taking the direction which is the subject of the bet. There are good odds against his being nice to Ms Tongue and Mr Driver but no takers on that runner. Perhaps Hammy could vent his wrath usefully with a drop of white collar boxing for charity. I wonder if he ever graced the ring in his youth ? Cheggers watch his left lead.
ReplyDeleteI just checked the above comments again and it is agreed that I won my bet ? The one chance in 3 came up. Well done Hammy. Now determining odds for and terms for another bet. If Hammy is ECR then the old Private Eye ham has been reading up on his psychopathic personality analysis. Maybe he borrowed a book from his chum the Great Daktari.
ReplyDeleteAre you obsessed with Hamilton, 5:27, or do you concern yourself with all other bloggers? I am laying odds that you are a bit of a tit with very limited intellect.
DeleteIf Hamilton concerns you so much why not do the clever thing and just ignore him or is that too obvious for you?