few old pictures, bit of painting in Margate, ramble

I went to Margate for a bit today, I had been building shelves in the bookshop for most of this week and felt like a bit of a break.

The main incentive being sketching from the cafe of Turner Contemporary, I have an A3 picture on the go from there, this looks fairly OK at first glance but is mostly odd attempts during the last few months to draw cars and boats.

I was mostly doing this bit today.

 I did a bit of more general sketching - I can either get what I have painted or what I am paining in focus - so two photos.

After a bit I got cold and came home, I didn't expect it to be cold in the end of the cafe, perhaps there is an issue with the glazing or insulation, the only visible radiator in the gallery is the one under what I think of as the round window, this was belting out heat.

I assumed the rest is heated underfloor like a Roman Villa or something

A few gallery pictures by the youf of today and Davies, the other stuff I have already done, Arp and the bed, in other posts. Here is the link to one http://thanetonline.blogspot.co.uk/2017/10/photographs-of-tracey-emins-bed-and-arp.html

Arp, Davies and the bed, i.e. this exhibition I think started well but seems a bit on the quiet side now, here is the link to the gallery’s website https://www.turnercontemporary.org/  

I guess that underlying this is that most readers here and I think most people in Thanet – well in general are not that interested in contemporary art. I think in a general sense if you say Dadaism to most people they are just as likely to say erp as Arp.

Me – myself well I am most interested in more conventional art, particularly with respect to the way it depicts the history of the period – wot it wos done in.

on to the local pictures.

Here in Ramsgate I am keeping an eye on how Wetherspoons is impacting on the rest of the café culture. Hence the Pav picts. 

My own take is that while Wetherspoons is very busy, I would think much busier than if you were to take all of the people who would have been in the café culture and put them inside. But the café culture seems much quieter since Wetherspoons opened.

So I am assuming that overall a lot more people are eating and drinking in the Harbour Parade area but mostly in the new Wetherspoons, which seems to be better than the average Wetherspoons.

That said this café culture area of Ramsgate is probably dependent on all of the café culture doing fairly well. 

I guess the solutions are a bit more difficult to fathom and related to there being a concentration of businesses in a relatively small area offering a fairly similar product/service when a huge competitor arrives.

Back in the 1980s book trade when various chain bookshops were fighting for business in our town centres and killing off the independents, the battle was mainly fought on price.    

On the food and drink front Tripadvisor uses, value, food and service while the other main check is the Food Standards Agency hygiene ratings. In a sense now Google Maps is probably overtaking Tripadvisor. The bottom line though is the British customer votes with their feet.