A Pen and Ink Sketch of The Sun Hotel in Canterbury from Canteen, a Photo from the Loo in Canteen, some Books for My Bookshop and a bit of a Ramble.

So here is the painting of The Sun Hotel in Canterbury

And here the photo from the loo in Canteen (a useful café on three floors with good quality food)

And here the books I bought for my bookshop in Canterbury today.

Once again apologies for the lack of contentious posts at the moment, this has been partly due to the council turning the shop opposite me into social housing, which has been very noisy making it hard to concentrate. God alone knows what type of poverty crime would have to be involved to wind up living in a flat with bedroom windows next to the pavement in King Street, where the takeaways are licensed to stay open until 4am, abject doesn’t get halfway there.   

On the politics front, I guess I should never have said I wanted to save Manston airport, this seems to have been translated into wanting to be in the flight path of an airfreight hub that passengers can't fly from. I think the politicians seem to have misjudged the difference between wanting to save a local airport that we locals could fly from, to wanting a council cpo for a freight hub, which as far as I can see from the figures is supported by about 2,500 people in the UK (the number who signed the UK parliament petition) about 250 of which live within an easy drive of Thanet, the most who have ever turned up at anything local supporting the cpo.

Of course there are also all those locals who think this cpo is for a regional airport, and don’t realise that the cpo would be for an airfreight only hub. As one of those who is first out with the camera when a plane flies over, running a bookshop with a large aviation section and regularly visiting the aviation museums, I am now observing something a bit like the ordinary churchgoer’s reaction when the evangelical born again Christians turn up, when the pro cpo for a freight hub lot turn up.

The big question for candidates as TDC councillors who say they will instigate a cpo as soon as they attain office is: Given that RiverOak have said they will not pay the Manston site owner compensation if the cpo fails, who would be liable for the compensation in the case of a failed cpo? 

My guess is that it would be us the taxpayer.

I guess aviation gaff of the day has to go to Cllr Dr Simon Moores who having tweeted

Simon Moores @SimonMoores · 4h4 hours ago

Sounds about right to me...! "Conservatives were destined to be the stronger of the two main parties in the “air war”," #GE2015

He has been flying around the Thanet skies today flying a banner

Simon Moores @SimonMoores · 3h3 hours ago

From a cognitive perspective this is interesting as #Labour supporters can reportedly only see red letters? #GE2015

 

View more photos and videos

1 favorite

More   

You may have to click on the imagines to see them, god alone knows what the point in flying an anti Labour banner is, instead of flying a banner supporting some party or another.

The side effect of this one is that most of the people who saw it seemed to think it was a pro Labour banner.

I guess this really all fits with our local politics, which seems to be much more about keeping some party out of office than trying to get some party with a good manifesto for Thanet elected.  

So anyway while virtually every MP in the UK is trying to stop aviation development in their constituencies because of the noise and air pollution, in Thanet an airfreight hub is seen as a vote winner, perhaps the first question is. Is it?