Old Ramsgate Photos + a few of other parts of Thanet and a minor ramble

 Before the Military Road arches were built in around 1895

 Before Westcliff Hall was built in 1914

 The newly opened Westcliff Hall around 1914

 So not The Van Gogh, not Churchill Tavern, Not Steptoe's but in its incarnation as Paragon Hotel

 Birchington

 I wonder what the building where the toilets are now was

Here at Michael's Bookshop in Ramsgate the effects of the clocks changing back to Greenwich Mean Time means it felt like we should have closed an hour before we did.

The main thing with the clocks changing that I have never understood is that with the shortest day being December 21st, why do we get 8 weeks of finishing work in the dark before it  and about 14 after it?

link to the books we put out today  

An invasion of orange Penguins from the time when they were 2/6 12.5p to 3/6 37.5p which is what they were at decimalisation when I was working occasionally in Stevenage Bookshop with old and new money priced on the books - old and new money in the till.

During the 1950s, 60s and up until decimalisation there was very little inflation in UK book prices or bookshop workers wages, meaning UK books were probably the cheapest in the world.

Now of course we are in the do, die or lie paradox. Government by referendum instead of our traditional democracy, where one party promises to build more tractors, because party members are for building more tractors and reckon doing so is achievable. Well now we have a situation where no party wanted to build more tractors, very few MPs this building more tractors is achievable without wrecking the economy, but the voters have voted to build more tractors.

Boris who promised more tractors on Thursday, do or die, now seems to be saying. "I'm a politician, trust me." One answer could be a referendum asking us if we want to change to government by referendum, the technology exists for us all to have a device, with what? A red button, blue button, green button, even a purple one.

If you are reading this while waiting in a traffic jam related to Operation Brock, do not adjust your mind reality is at fault.

Breiðamerkurjökull isn't a word I would usually use when mulling over which way to vote in a UK general election, all we know is that it won't be on December 12.

The top picture shows the Breiðamerkurjökull glacier in 1989 and the bottom one now
Link to the BBC article about this
Perhaps a difficult aspect of climate change to deny, although personally as an incognito member of the Australian Flat Earth Society, I am exploring the options, but will probably vote Gren.

I don't feel quite so bad about giving up my 7.5 litre car now.

My smartphone now says suspected spam caller, when it is, which is useful.