May day today and I went to Margate; in search of something
pagan? Don’t know really. At Turner Contemporary I went through the motions of
not photographing or drawing “Atmosphere” by Edmund De Waal, the only major
exhibit you are allowed to photograph, I hope was is a sufficiently minimalist
approach. There are parallels between the vitrines containing his pots and the
gallery’s café where I went for a coffee. There is a sense there of being
inside an extension of the exhibits that one has just been, what’s the word? We
will go for “observing” from different angles.
For me the acid test of any work of art is does it inspire
me to engage in art myself. And after my minimalist observation I was just
gagging to draw, my brain was still between two glass cases, so the impossible
(above) occurred.
After this I ventured further into the gallery in search of maidens with maypoles.
So here is a picture of one of his other books.
On, sadly to the council, some of you will have read Ian
Driver’s blog post http://thanetgreencouncillor.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/thanet-council-bullies-whistleblowers.html
where there is an email from the council’s lawyer asking Ian to do the
impossible i.e. remove something from the internet.
Here is the relevant quote:
“You should also be aware that qualified privilege attaches
when issues of concern are raised internally but your conduct in publishing
these can attract no such protection and as a result, you have placed yourself
at significant personal risk of having multiple actions in defamation taken
against you by all those named in your web-blog, If nothing else will persuade
you to do the right thing, perhaps the realisation that you have placed your
home and personal assets at risk, will.
I therefore require you to immediately remove from your web
blog all the matters referred to in this letter. I would also suggest that you
seek urgent legal advice on how to mitigate your liability for your ill judged
actions.”
Of course no one would read this as a veiled threat and as I
have already said, removing something from the internet is impossible anyway,
only the most technologically illiterate would have the slightest difficulty
finding the cached page.
Anyway this morning I sent the following open letter in the
form of an email to the council’s chief executive, lawyer, leader and leader of
the opposition.
“Hi Sue [forwarded to the others asking them to comment on it]
Please see this one as an open letter that will be published
today, with any reply you send me.
I am becoming increasingly concerned about the situation at TDC
with senior officers and councillors.
This culminated yesterday in a councillor publishing documents [which he was then asked to remove] Ed. I have removed part of this paragraph pending legal advice.
I am leaving part of the post deleted at the moment but have added this link to the Gazette article about the issue http://www.thanetgazette.co.uk/Council-takes-legal-advice-chief-executive/story-21035116-detail/story.html
I am leaving part of the post deleted at the moment but have added this link to the Gazette article about the issue http://www.thanetgazette.co.uk/Council-takes-legal-advice-chief-executive/story-21035116-detail/story.html
The follow up to this was the council’s legal department
threatening the councillor with legal action that could result in the loss of
his house.
Looking at this from outside the council my impression is, that if
an elected member discovers wrongdoing or suspects that there may be wrongdoing
among the most senior officers, then that councillor is likely to be threatened
with having his or her house repossessed and being made bankrupt.
Any thoughts you
have on this matter would be helpful.
Best regards Michael”
I have so far had the following reply from the leader of the
opposition:
Hi Michael
As I am presently a member of TDC's General
Purposes Committee, which is presently engaged in a process related to the
issues you raise, I feel that it would be inappropriate to comment on your open
letter. The work of this committee has been seriously compromised by Cllr
Driver's actions and I have no desire to make things worse.
Regards
Bob
And this reply from the council’s
PR team:
Dear
Michael,
Your
recent e-mail has been passed on to the PR and Publicity team.
Our
response to your enquiry is as follows:
The council is following due process and in order to allow this to
be properly and thoroughly considered – and in fairness to the parties
concerned – it would be inappropriate to provide any comment on this
investigation at the present time.
Kind
regards
*****
I don’t really know if I will get any more replies though I expect I will as I am sure they are not all in it together, if I do I will publish them.
In view of the warning and although
I really don’t have any idea what the council would do with my bookshop,
comments with names of officers and councillors that look dubious will be
deleted from this post as will anything else that could possibly construed as
detrimental to the council’s investigation.
I will also ramble on here about my visit to Margate.
Now the bulb has gone out in Tracey Emin’s Margate sign, I wondered if anyone could remember what it said as I found myself struggling. Wasn't it supposed to be worth loads of dosh, I do hope I am not the only person to notice that there is no canvas in the frame.
As you see they have the right idea about how to stop it floating away.
This is a picture of the rather limited information about referring sites on bloggers own stats page, this is what drives the counter app at the top of the sidebar.
Now the bulb has gone out in Tracey Emin’s Margate sign, I wondered if anyone could remember what it said as I found myself struggling. Wasn't it supposed to be worth loads of dosh, I do hope I am not the only person to notice that there is no canvas in the frame.
Back in Ramsgate with the lifeguard hut on our rapidly diminishing
beach.
As you see they have the right idea about how to stop it floating away.
Ah yes, a stamp on the toe for being so slow, I went to the
webstats for this blog that I usually use for the referring sites on my pinch
and a punch posts and it says I only had one visit during the last month. So either
there has been a technical glitch or this blog has become a lot less popular
recently.
This is a picture of the rather limited information about referring sites on bloggers own stats page, this is what drives the counter app at the top of the sidebar.