Wednesday 30 September 2015

Pen and watercolour sketch of Ramsgate pretty much done but this is a mostly a test post for another bit of cheap technology

Here is the Ramsgate pen and watercolour sketch, the cloud will have to wait until there is some cloud in the sky.

The technology bit is using  a cheap 8 inch tablet, the largest that goes in my pocket to write this blog post. This idea being that this is about the smallest device I can touch type on.

Part of this is a sort of experiment too on how much of my computing I can do on a computer that can be bought new for less than £100. I think this one was about £60 when Argos had them on special.

Ok this next bit this is written entirely using the voice command I'm not sure how well it will work but you can imagine how much easier it be if you could write blog this way full stop full stop full stop period full stop

Frankly it is remarkably accurate however punctuation is not easy comma you see what I mean.

Tuesday 29 September 2015

A bit more paint on the Ramsgate sketch, a minor Manston Airport cpo update, a few thoughts on running out of memory on an Android smartphone and a ramble.


As you can see I have been splodging on more paint, throwing up the good and bad bits in the pen drawing.


An amusing aspect of this today was that while I was painting the sign on Harbour Gallery in the picture a painter and decorator came along and painted over the sign on the building.


The Manston update is a a bit mixed but the main part involves planning and particularly planning application F/TH/15/0457 for Building 870 at Manston Airport for Change of use from airport use to general industrial use together with four storey extension and insertion of windows.


My understanding is that TDC are trying to delay Discovery Park’s planning applications getting approval, while TDC tries to find an indemnity partner that can prove it has enough funds in place to cover TDC’s attempt to put a cpo on Manston.     


To get a rough idea of the amounts of money involved, my understanding is, legal and administrative costs £2m to £4m, owners compensation (this roughly equates to what the owners would need to buy another similar site, e.g. if the council cpo your house to build a road they give you the money to buy a new house and move to it) at the moment Manston is classified as a 700 acre brownfield site and whatever happens it would seem unlikely the value would go under £500,000 per acre, so more than £350m, the compensation for those affected who are not site owners, this pans out along the line of if say your house suddenly being under the flight path of an airfreight hub suffers a loss of value of 20% then the council would have to pay you the money. Added on to this are the compensation amounts related to noise which is basically covering the cost of double glazing for those affected and the new issue of particulate air pollution and how it relates to reduced life expectancy.


So as you see plenty of reasons why the council would want to delay planning applications for businesses that want to open on the site.


Anyway my understanding was that at the last planning meeting the UKIP members had won a victory which was that application F/TH/15/0457 would be deferred and come back to planning committee, however reading the bumph on the council’s website at http://democracy.thanet.gov.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=115&MId=4011 it seems this is not the case and that the application has been approved subject to officer checks.

Correction  I missed the link view the full minutes text for item 70. http://democracy.thanet.gov.uk/mgAi.aspx?ID=25450 so this is wrong and the important bit is: Following debate, the motion was put to the vote and was declared LOST.

It was then proposed by the Councillor Leys and seconded by Councillor J.Fairbrass:


“THAT Members defer and that the application is brought back to Planning Committee on receipt of satisfactory specialist advice which confirms that the proposed extension to the building will not prejudice any potential future operation of an airport.’”

Upon the motion being put to the vote, it was declared CARRIED.


My own stance on the airport cpo is that while when the airport closed I was all for getting it reopened as a passenger airport, once it was sold to Discovery Park, who are the biggest local employer, and the only other option being the council cpo to turn it into an airfreight hub that we can’t fly from, it’s a bit of a no brainer.


Onto my smartphone issue, in order to manage a business, school age children, painting and drawing while still getting time to write this blog I have to have my internet technology arranged in a way where all the photos I take go onto the intern automatically and documents like the one I am writing at the moment have to be sitting online in a way that I can add to them from my phone, tablet, laptop or desktop.


The idea with smartphones is that you direct all of the images they save to the memory card, so the phone’s memory doesn’t fill up and when the card fills up, well they are all automatically saved on the web so you can delete them from the card.


This business is is related to what on your computer, tablet or smartphone is called sync and synchronises what you do on the different equipment, well what was happening with my phone was I would delete loads of images from my gallery and they would come back again, the phone was syncing them into the the internet and then the internet was syncing them back on my phone.


In the end I discovered that this was due to the Picasa app which is part of the Google+ app and going into settings - accounts - Google - thanetonline@gmail.com (which is the name of my Google+ account and unchecking  the box marked Sync Picasa Web Albums, gave me back my memory.


Well actually I had to go into settings - application manager - all - Gallery Clear Data, mi poor old brain.

This next lot of photos is Platform Graduate Showcase at Turner Contemporary Margate.






Verious Artists at Bohemi Art Gallery Ramsgate Harbour Arches

Mixed exhibition all week at Bohemi Gallery Ian Barrowcliffe, Sheila Burcul, Nick Chapman, Patricia Bentley, Sarah Knowler.






Sunday 27 September 2015

A few pictures of Dreamland Margate today

OK I know I should have taken a proper camera and there are probably lots of better pictures of Dreamland on the internet than these ones taken with my phone, but there you go; pictures will expand if clicked on obsessively.