School holidays start with don’t swim in the sea and children’s books in the bookshop

 I will start with the children’s books, it is a very good idea if children have a books to read during the school holidays. The pictures are of the books in the children’s section of my bookshop, if you click on the photos so they get bigger and click on them again, once they have got bigger, they should get big enough to let you read most of the titles. If they don’t I will try to take some better photos and replace them.

I am having a jinxed day, I could say my decent camera has gone wrong, the truth is that I have lost the charger, so I took the pictures with my mobile phone which isn’t so good indoors.

 There are several reasons why it is best for children to have a real book to read, rather than a kindle, or some other device, the main one being that technology has just too many distractions.

Another one is to do with what some people call “lose toys in the attic” which is a euphemism (another way of saying) “mental” “mad” and so on, which can be hurtful if the person you’re talking about has really got a mental illness.  

 However people who are reasonably sane, in fact everyone, has stuff in their minds that works strangely for one reason or another. I think that if someone uses a screen a lot to read things that hardly go in to their memory and they will never need a few seconds after reading them, then their minds get used to junking stuff they read on screens.

A very good example on this blog is when the adults start to insult each other, they skim up and down the comments looking only for. What? Someone they don’t like so they can be rude to them. Someone who has been rude to them. can you think of any more? But the point here is it soon becomes obvious that they are not interested in the topic of the post, so their mind is junking that information.

 If you read a book on a screen and your mind has gone even a little bit like that when you read from screens, you may find you’ve “lost the plot” sorry couldn’t resist that one, wait until I get to the sea, it will get worse.

This can be a problem with serious study, my children have been saying, “print it out dad” for years.

 This part of my bookshop has children’s books for children, the books are priced accordingly, there are lots of books priced under £1 and if you look carefully some are priced at 10p. This is partly books that are nearly worn out, but also my low cunning which I hope will make children look at the books carefully.

 I should also point out the we offer exchange vouchers for books we want, and either money or more value in book exchange vouchers for books we want a lot. So if you have books you have already read you may not need money at all.

 There is always not paying for books at all and we have a library with a children’s book section which all children can join for free. What’s the snag? Library fines. Are you a well organised person? Do you loose things? Do strange marks appear on books when you read them? Do the pages often fall out when you read books? If the answer to any these questions is yes, then either change your ways or pay.

 Of course if you have bought a book and the book has some sort of accident, then this can be less of a problem and it can make for more relaxed reading.

 The big question is. Why would you want to read a book at all? If you didn’t ask it even a little bit, somewhere in your head's attic then you can skip the next bit.

Otherwise there are two questions. Do you like money? And do you like life.

People who read books do better with their education. People with a better education earn more money. People who earn more money usually have a greater life expectancy (live longer).

So think of the poor total stranger who is you in a few years time. 

 I have started expanding the children’s section, this is a long job and a bit like a puzzle, for instance I have to move all of dictionaries in order to make space some books about crime, so I can move the humour books, so there is more space for children’s books next to the rest of the children's books.

 On to the don’t swim in the sea business, the council has issued a warning not to swim in the sea on the beaches between Walpole Bay and Dumpton Gap, this includes: Walpole Bay, Palm Bay, Botany Bay, Kingsgate Bay, Joss Bay, Stone Bay, Viking Bay, Louisa Bay and Dumpton Gap.

 The Australians often have signs by their swimming pools saying. “Don’t pee in our swimming pool and we won’t swim in your toilet.” What seems to have happened here is we peed in our toilets and it has arrived in our sea.

 In some ways this is good news, because up until recently when things went wrong they didn’t tell anyone, now they put up warning signs and I think if something like this happens it is better to tell people.

 I will write a bit more about this later, I know you really know this is because I want to see how much it takes to fill the spaces, but I am pretending I have something interesting to say. 

Back in 2011 what happened here in Thanet when things went badly wrong, was the council and the water company let everyone swim in their toilet. I had a word with the council about this, here it is http://thanetonline.blogspot.co.uk/2011/05/thanet-blue-flags-some-thoughts-from.html so you see what reading can do.

It means that if you read a lot you may have some unexpected information up your sleeve, even the water company's engineer's notes.  

The downside here is that the council may not like you very much, so you may wind up trying to run a business opposite the biggest shop in the street and find that on the one hand it belongs to the council. While on the other hand it’s empty and they never ever intend to let it as a shop again.

Now I am going to be politically incorrect here, in fact I am going to be sexist, I am going to suggest first that women do most of the shopping and I am going on to suggest that most women won’t park in the multi story car park.  

Now three of my children and my wife are of the female persuasion and most of the blog readers will be familiar with the pictures that I paint, and put on this blog, while waiting for shopping to occur. I know this sexism may lead to adverse comment so I am covering my back here the best I can.   

However I think I may have the reason why nearly all of the shops in King Street between mine and the town centre are still trading as shops and I think this reason is that it is right next the open air car park which is where most of the women park when they come to Ramsgate.

Now in most of the other towns in this country the councils are doing everything they can to keep shops open, so it may be purely coincidental that they are trying very hard to keep this one closed.

Of course it may be that the reason that nearly all of the shops between mine and the town centre are open is because of the people going past them on the way to buy their books, ok I concede it may be a bit of each.   

Oh no I’ve just realised that I have done something else that will very probably annoy the council, perhaps they will buy another shop in the street and make sure that it is never going to be a shop again.

There isn’t much else they can do, we already have had pretty much every possible on street parking space removed, the wobbly pavements the blocked drains and have been excluded from the town centre policing.

The bottom line here is.

We'll let you swim in our toilet if you don't pee on our council. 

Stonehenge Decoded and other aspects of a Friday blog ramble

In the 1960s when I first visited Stonehenge as a teenager the basic plan was to insert tab A into slot B and try to comprehend some of the deep and meaningless aspects of the stones, whilst also trying to stop the top of ones head from unscrewing.

Anyway provoked by the enquiring minds of the youf of today I revisited the fundamental questions about Stonehenge. What does it do? and how does it do it?

Pretty obviously what happens is that the druid enters the stone circle between two stones and exits between another two into a different reality, I seem to remember at some time in the 60s there was a sign there saying “Do Not Adjust Your Mind, Reality Is At Fault” or something.  

How it does this is a bit difficult to put into words that will bridge the age gap, and drawing a diagram seemed to be a bit condescending, so I painted them a picture.

I thought I would start with a smaller henge with less stones, I have been putting off painting one with more stones as I get the feeling that something strange may happen.

One of the youf of today asked if it is an optical illusion, to which I answered, just a stone circle with all of the stones around the same size. Some measuring then followed and I was informed that that the upright one on the far right is much shorter, so it is an illusion. 

Always useful to the budding artist to encounter the aspiring art critic.

The life of the modern independent retailer is a tricky one, although to be honest that of the secondhand bookseller has always been somewhat tenuous. Despite wearing the uniform (socks and sandals) at 59 I haven’t yet managed to aspire to the dizzy heights of carpet slippers, but gather there will eventually be some sort of secret initiation ceremony involving the retriever of no returns. Despite maintaining a shop with a permanent look of “out to lunch”. I find I am still encountering customers and sometimes difficult customers.

In this case it was a lady who brought back a book of spells complaining that her broom wouldn’t fly; a refund, well obviously made that strange sucking noise between the teeth, always an indicator that something expensive is about to happen.

Anyway in this instance I withheld the ultimate retailer’s weapon (calling her madam) and explained that I had been selling spell books, man and boy for the last fifty years and no one had ever brought one back complaining that the spells didn’t work.

Unfortunately this approach failed, I have been threatened with no less that the trades descriptions act of 1968 and had to issue a refund of £2.50. In some ways this is quite a relief as the book in question is now safely back where it belongs.

 I have added a picture so you can share my relief that the book is now safely back on the shelf in my bookshop after its difficult and unsuccessful adventure.

While on the subject of not flying, since Ann Gloag (who in no way looks like a witch) pulled the magic carpet from under Manston, rumour has been flying round the world. One is that KLM were not actually having a public display of sour grapes but that when Boet Kreiken said. “Now it is game over; we will redeploy the aircraft. We are gone.” This was actually a euphemism for it just wasn’t profitable to run a passenger service from Manson.

Apparently Charles Buchanan has been seen standing on the not inconsiderable coastline of the Thanet transport hub brandishing a model aeroplane and extolling fish to buy airline tickets.  

Another rumour is that the big guns of the local Conservative party have found that the solution to not enough passengers is no passengers and are trying to broker a deal for a huge freight only hub at Manston.  

In the circumstances it may be as well that Ramsgate Sandys is going apparently there has been something of a Gale there over potential freight night flights as apparently magic mushrooms can only be moved at night.

No ramble would be complete without some reference to our own dear councils so I will drop the broomstick and concentrate on the legal highs for a while. At the moment socialist run TDC is working on the disposal of the last remaining high profile council owned Ramsgate building. As good socialists their master plan is to hand it to the largest capitalist they can find. I am told there will be no payment to TDC for the very long peppercorn rent apart from half the rental return on putting a farmers market – as far from the main car parks as possible – in the third of the building that isn’t to become the largest pub in Europe.

What we need here is the TDC Margate Tories to apply the magic solution of grant funding to turn it into the largest public venue in Ramsgate and if that fails the Kent Tories to use a good old fashioned socialist inspired subsidy, like the have with Turner Contemporary.

As things are looking once copious quantities of legal high have been imbibed and the customers have become naughtily inebriate, they will make their way past the bouncers and the regular policing on Harbour Parade to the takeaways in King Street where there is no apparent policing.

The council have licensed these until four in the morning so the worst of the political offenders – who are made to live there in social housing on the ground floor next to the street – will get no sleep whatsoever and are likely to step in an amusing pool of beer and kebab if they do venture out.  

Of course the council have just compulsorily purchased the huge old carpet shop there, but I guess this would be deemed as being far to close to the car park to be suitable for an indoor and farmers market.

Summer being just around the corner and yesterday being my day off, I decided to unfold our folding caravan, which has become a bit retro, by accident rather than design. I thought I had better check everything was ok before unfolding it at a campsite.

The instruction book says that one person can put it up in about 5 mins, it takes two of us about 10 but still amuses people at a campsite so here are the unfolding pictures.  

            
Now for some photos from the last few days I will endeavour to add some text to them if I get the time. 

Market day in Ramsgate today, something that has a place for all budgets

I tend to go for the Rooks meat or cheese and salad with salad roll, which is very good value at £1.99

As you may know with these rambles, I will add to it if I get time, it’s market day today and my bookshop is fairly busy, at this very moment I am dealing with a trades description issue relating to a lady who bought a book out of the occult section which has failed to make her broom fly.