More old Ramsgate fishing smack pictures and the complicated art of commenting on blogger.

The internet is a funny old place, it seems impossible now that only a very few years ago nearly all of the comment happened on the local blogs and that open and anonymous comment was the norm.

Nowadays the vast majority of local comment seems to happen on the local Facebook groups, on the plus side it is possible to moderate comment on these groups by excluding commentators. A difficult job for group administrators, but not impossible as it became on blogger.

The problems with Facebook though are different one being it handles images very differently to blogger making it difficult to view larger images and difficult to publish a lot straight from your phone. Another problem is that the google search engine seems to be blind to Facebook and the search Facebook box, well just try putting in, Ramsgate fishing smack. 

So with yesterday’s blog post most of the comment wound up here https://www.facebook.com/groups/516220578418850/permalink/1482897158417849/ but of course you can only see it if you are a member of We Love Ramsgate Facebook group.

It’s all rather difficult and honestly I don’t know what the solution is, the crux of the problem is that the law is very vague about where the responsibility for third party comment lies.

On to the pictures of the Ramsgate fishing industry around 1900

 I think what is going on here is a process called tanning the sails, my guess is some sort of concoction containing linseed oil and probably ochre giving the distinctive yellow brown colour. I think the idea is to preserve the cotton sails for as long as possible.

And finally the books that went out in my bookshop today http://michaelsbookshop.blogspot.co.uk/2017/01/phantoms-in-bookshop.html