Photos webstats luftwaffe on the mat and a stamp on the toe, for being so slow.

The school Easter holidays have started, not the month I used to get, but a couple of weeks. With the price of petrol at the moment I am inclined to stay in Thanet more than usual and on every day off the tricky problem of what to do with two primary school children on days off, rises in the backs of the adult minds here like the square root of minus one.

As it is pretty much all car journeys now also involve moving books about and doing shopping, anyway the plan yesterday was to do Quex grounds and the Powell Cotton museum stopping off at the Spitfire and Hurricane museum on the way.

In terms of museum opening we were both lucky and unlucky, my youngest daughter asked me why the calculator on her phone, while calculating the square root of 16 as 4 seems to think the square root of minus 16 is 42, she is now reading Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, so understands the meaning of a low probability. Sorry I digress we went to the Spitfire museum in the morning this was lucky as it had to close during the afternoon due to a lack of volunteers. We then travelled on to Quex in the sure and certain knowledge that if there wasn’t a small probability of going via the moon the universe would cease to exist. Anyway we arrived at Quex like four cats in a jam jar, and the wave function collapsed revelling that it didn’t open until tomorrow, which is now today.

Due to humour or in the case of Simon Moores humours, see http://birchington.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/margate-mirage.html and http://birchington.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/apply-here.html the pinch and punch stuff didn’t happen yesterday so the chart of the most popular local blogs last month is here http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/laptop412/id5.htm you ask, what does it all mean? In purely scientific terms I suppose the answer is something along the lines of the more you know, the higher the level of your confusion.

The pictures are at

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/laptop412/index.htm

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/laptop412/id3.htm

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/laptop412/id4.htm

I have a bookshop to open so I will add the bit about the luftwaffe on the mat later on.   

Staying on the subject of aviation for a moment, my son is studying science at a higher level, doing a thing called a masters, which essentially allows us to move together in a higher country of the mind, and mutually share ignorance of a more complex nature. He sent me the aviation video above the other day, before I discovered the mat pictured above and it may or may not be advisable to watch it, depending on what you want to know.

In something of a coals to Newcastle way we bought some Biggles books from the Spitfire museum, there are 102 Biggles books so keeping an adequate stock in a secondhand bookshop can be difficult. 

No doubt as Biggles evidently works it out I will also get there in the end, although for some reason blogger won’t let me insert the picture of the books the right way up, tried this in IE and Chrome.

Coming back to the webstats at the moment, in what I take to be a move towards turning the www into cww we have entered a phase where UK blogs now have two addresses .com and .co.uk.

Earlier this week, like Alice I went down this particular rabbit hole with google books, a friend of mine who is an American geology professor, wrote a book about gas plant contamination.

One has to be careful here an American may mean different things due to our languages separating several hundred, years ago.

For instance an American who says: “I’m mad about my flat.” Probably means he is annoyed because he has a puncture and not that he likes his apartment.

But in this instance the gas in question transpires not to be petrol, but good old fashioned suicide in the oven, coal gas, and the contamination that relates to my small contribution to his book concerns the gasworks on each side of Boundary Road in Ramsgate.

So we now, most of us bloggers have two addresses in the stats, meaning that things are not at first what they seem, curioser and……..        

Back to the aviation again, hence the, Blind Faith, picture to remind me to keep on track, having started negotiations to buy the airport, I discovered the asking price is £80,000,000 so will have to dig in the back pocket for that one.   


here is Clive Hart on the airport

I get some funny emails due to checking stuff out and thought this one could amuse a few people

Dear purchasing manager,

We are pleased to get to know that you are presently on the market for cyclohexanone, and as a specialized manufacturer and exporter for this product in China, we sincerely hope to establish business relations with your esteemed corporation.

Herewith pls find our competitive offer as flws:

product: cyclohexanone

Price: USD1750/MT, FOB TIANJIN

Delivery: Within 2 weeks after received advanced payment

Payment: 30% T/T in advance as deposit, and 70% balance before delivery

Should you have any questions, pls do not hesitate to contact me.  

we look forward to your early reply.

thanks&regards

Adela

E-mail: adela@fsshchem.com

Tel: 86-022-27056805

Fax: 86-022-58675719

Zip: 300350

Skype: adela201108

Manston Airshow This Sunday 11am to 5pm

There have been various airshows at Manston over the years, this link takes you a series of linked pages of pictures of the last one I went to http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/manston/index.htm

Aerial Display Event 2011 at RAF Spitfire & Hurricane Memorial Trust

On Manston Airfield “Event 2011” (Weather Permitting)

Aerial displays; Battle of Britain Memorial Flight, Boeing Stearman, Messerschmitt 108, The Spirit of Kent Spitfire, Authentic air raid sound effects! Essex Police Helicopter, Kent Air Ambulance

Static Displays; MoD Fire Appliances, Kent Fire & Rescue Service, Fire Museum Appliances, Afghan Heroes Charity Motorcycle Riders, A variety of stalls and stands, Air Cadet Band, TS Jamaica Cadets, Kent Fleet Air Arm Association, Royal British Legion Riders, RAF Careers, Bomb Disposal and Armourers, Kent Special Constabulary, Kent Air Ambulance Stand, SECAM Ambulance Service, St John Ambulance, RNLI, Kent Fire Service Safety Stand, Licensed Bars, Refreshment stands, Children’s Rides, Children’s Toys, Ceramics, Face Painting, Temporary Tattoos, Toilets, Bouncy Castle, Children’s Clothes, and much, much more - fun for all the family.

Arrangements may be subject to change without warning!

Parking: Cars £5, Coaches (by arrangement only) £40

Booking: 01843 821940 Monday to Friday between 9.30 & 1.30.

By kind permission of Kent International Airport, Manston

Spitfire Hurricane Memorial Museum and Manston History Museum and West Bay

Having had a difficult weekend thus far it was our intention to take the children to Birchington and enjoy the gardens at Quex Park.

The idea being to go to West Bay near Birchington, get lunch at the café there and eat it watching the sea and then go on to Quex.

As soon as we arrived at West Bay it started to rain, so we ate inside the café, why the café there?

This one offers a mixture of reasonably good food that comes quickly, children’s food that children understand and eat, a bright airy non claustrophobic atmosphere, they allow dogs, there is a large fairly comfortable shelter adjacent where one can have a smoke without feeling like a third class citizen and excellent value for money.

I had sausage and chips, one child had a children’s portion of same, one child had a cheese and tomato sandwich with no butter as ordered, my wife had a Mars bar and some of our chips, two bottled Cokes both children had branded bottled drinks that they evidently understood, both children ate all of their food and were awarded branded ice creams of their choice, total cost £16.

Well you can see what I mean from the pictures at http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/510b/id3.htm

Having decided that gardens were not on due to the rain we went on to do the museums at Manston, first The Spitfire Hurricane Memorial Museum this has free entry, toilets, baby change facilities and a cafeteria.

This museum takes about an hour to do, which is about how long we were there, the children weren’t bored, however they did buy a raffle ticket each, prizes included a flying lesson and a helicopter trip to a gourmet meal, so there may be some difficulties if they win.

The pictures of the museum are pretty self explanatory see http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/510b/id4.htm

Then on to The Manston History Museum, entrance £1 adults and 50p for children over 5, this is a fairly large museum and takes about one and a half to two hours to do, once again we were there for about that time and the children didn’t get bored, they particularly liked the part that is set out as an air raid, with sound effects and lighting that my photographs don’t show properly.

Once again the photographs are fairly self explanatory see http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/510b/id5.htm