Saturday, walk in Ramsgate, pictures, even pictures of pictures and a bit of a ramble on about this and that.

One way or another I haven’t managed to get out much this week and so I went out this morning leaving the bookshop in the capable hands of the chap who works for me on Saturday.

As is my usual habit the whole contents of the camera card are here

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/112/id3.htm 

and here

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/112/id4.htm

the wind that was forecast didn’t seem to blow much so it was very pleasant indeed. A few thoughts on the first batch of photos.

Once again the Pleasurama development is something that causes me to speculate about what it is that is going on, on site. Obviously there is no point in me asking the people involved for temporary for temporary leisure use this summer as we now have all the concrete posts on the site.

Interestingly they are now working far enough down the site towards the lift to be where the cliff façade is much more dubious.

Here the design drawings and in this case I am certain that the council have supplied me with the right ones, show that there should be foundations that would have required digging out above the load spreaders.

Well they new have an updated HSE notification extending to about March 2014 although is still suggests there should be 200 people working on the site instead of the maximum of four we have become accustomed to.

I took some more Great Wall of Ramsgate pictures, can anyone spot the one that has been painted out?

On to the next lot.

A lot of activity in the outer harbour, presumably to do with the wind farms, some rather dubious looking cracks appearing in the top of the east pier, lets hope the sea doesn’t modify it again. The has obviously been some sort of fire at the back of the pavilion. The British Heart Foundation charity shop in Harbour Street has had the door glass and a window broken.

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/laptop112/id9.htm

I may ramble on…..

  

Friday in the bookshop picking over the pieces.

Internet coverage of last nights council meeting was the most prolific I ever remember.

http://birchington.blogspot.com/2012/01/kicking-around.html

http://bignewsmargate.blogspot.com/2012/01/east-kent-hospitals-turn-back-clocks.html

http://villeviews.blogspot.com/2012/01/labouring-over-budget-conservative.html

even the council managed to get a press release out at about half nine this morning

http://thanetpress.blogspot.com/2012/01/thanet-district-council-budget-201213.html

whether it ever makes it on to the council’s own website remains to be seen.

The problems here still seem to be as bad as ever, with the council using the internet in the strangest possible way. They have just managed to Decembers dead whale story on their facebook wall, see http://www.facebook.com/pages/Thanet-District-Council/83700846372?sk=wall

For me the council’s latest big omission was failing to tell anyone they had published the Ramsgate Port and Harbour Draft Masterplan 2011 see http://tdc-mg-dmz.thanet.gov.uk/mgConvert2PDF.aspx?ID=16189 Readit noticed this one see http://in2thanet.blogspot.com/2012/01/port-masterplan-2011.html and although it is called the 2011 plan the council only published it yesterday.

The problem always seems to come back to differentiating between what’s important and what isn’t. Sometimes I get indicators, like today.

“Dear all

Details of day seven of the Dreamland CPO Public Inquiry are now available on the council's website:

http://www.thanet.gov.uk/environment---planning/planning/ldf-and-local-plan/dreamland/public-inquiry.aspx

You may find the cross examination of Dan Ryan particularly interesting.

We expect the remainder of the objectors' evidence to be given today and then the council's evidence will begin when the Inquiry resumes on the afternoon of Wednesday 15 February.

Regards,”

This is about http://www.thanet.gov.uk/environment__planning/planning/ldf_and_local_plan/dreamland/public_inquiry/public_inquiry_day_7_summary/cross_examination_dan_ryan.aspx  

Ramsgate lawn http://www.londonarray.com/2011/08/26/1683/.

Tesco seem to have done it again having opened a store in Ramsgate, this time Hereson Road, see http://thanetonline.blogspot.com/2010/07/thanet-tesco-and-human-environment-and.html they now plan to close it.

Perhaps they will have a go at the M&S site in the town now Peacocks have gone bust.  


I suppose this could be an ominous sign for Margate, as if they open their new store and it doesn’t make enough money, then they will obviously cut their losses pretty quickly. 

I will ramble on here if I get time.

   

The blog inspector calls, The Turner Contemporary starts on book destruction project, not my day, but my day off a ramble.

The Isle of Thanet Gazette’s Andrew Woodman is tweeting tonight’s council meeting live as it is happening, I hope he has a decent keyboard on his phone, here is the link http://twitter.com/ThanetGazette


My day off didn’t go too well really as most of my commitments were after lunch, although more importantly after it stopped raining. Having got the children to school the rain came, so I sat at the computer answering correspondence, only about 100 unanswered emails left to go now, sorry if you are on the list.

I did manage to take a few pictures, pretty wacky sky today so what you see is what you get, some shot out of the car window, well the rest are at http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/laptop112/id8.htm

Lunch in the garden centre and it was really very good, they have an offer of two lunches off the specials board for £10 at the moment, one to remember especially if you have young children as they have a large soft play area.

 I am not really sure what to make of the latest in the John Worrow saga, I guess there may be something behind it in terms of real discrimination, although frankly when someone who is reasonably articulate and appears to be reasonably well educated engages in some sort of discriminatory behaviour, one tends to assume they have mental health issues, so I suppose the sympathy goes as much to wards the discriminator as the discriminated. That said I was taught to box by a Welshman and still have a tendency to duck when I hear the accent, particularly when associated with the word boyo. Pavlovian maybe but defiantly a toy lose in the attic.  

I guess most of you will have read http://birchington.blogspot.com/2012/01/on-pulse.html and http://bignewsmargate.blogspot.com/2012/01/blogging-hell.html

I did email John Worrow thus:

“From:  michaelchild to: *****@******

John I have to say I am not happy about this idea of policing local blogs with Thanet blog wardens and it is my intention to write a post about it.

I though I would ask you if there is any extra information I ought to know before I do so.

Frankly the notion that the Thanet blogs are spreading Racial and Religious Hatred is preposterous.

Anyway any thoughts from you before I write my post?

Best regards Michael”

But haven’t had a reply. I am also a bit uncertain where John falls in the council now, Labour, Independent, on his own, anyone know?

The latest Turner Contemporary project seems to be about doing something other than reading them with books see http://www.turnercontemporary.org/blog/learning/blank-canvas-by-lucy-steggals-lead-artist-6

I guess Fahrenheit 451 was a bit before it’s time, but now in the age of the Kindle, what are we going to do with all the books?

I am trying to draw Albert Einstein this is the beginning of the sketch, his must be one of the most recognisable faces in the world but trying to extract what it is that makes him look like he does is proving remarkably difficult.

Looking on the internet to see how well other people have succeeded in drawing him, it seems I am not the only person to have difficulty, there are some obvious computer generated and traced drawings but not much else.

I have added a bit more hair and some clothing and sprayed it with fixative so it is a bit wet at the moment, perhaps a bit of paint will make the situation different

Richborough Power Station, going going gone.

The council have decided Richborough power station is to go between March and November. 

     When it was fuelled with orimulsion people complained that it damaged the paintwork on cars parked near it, makes you wonder what breathing the fumes did to people.
 

Dreamland, public enquiry to run on and The Los Angeles Times coverage.

I have just received notification that the Dreamland public enquiry is due to run on, this is what the council has to say:

 “The report from day five of the Dreamland CPO Public Inquiry is now available on the council's website: http://www.thanet.gov.uk/environment---planning/planning/ldf-and-local-plan/dreamland/public-inquiry.aspx

 We are aware that there have been questions from members of the public about the remaining dates for the Inquiry and we have updated the information on this page with the latest details that we have on this. As soon as we have any further confirmed dates, we will put the information on this page.”
 

 Also an interesting article on Dreamland in The Los Angeles Times, see http://www.latimes.com/travel/deals/themeparks/la-trb-dreamland-margate-england-01201217,0,30872,full.story

 The pictures are from http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/catalogue/dreamland_cinema_1935.htm and although the printing quality owes much to the advanced potato print they are fairly interesting.   

 More about this if I get time.

Marlowe Academy in Trouble Again? and a ramble

Reading The Guardian yesterday http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2012/jan/16/academies-special-measures-apprenticeships I noticed this article, which says:

"In December, we reported on the Marlowe Academy in Ramsgate, in Thanet, Kent, one of the worst-performing secondary schools in the country, which, after failing to make significant improvements on its GCSE results, had effectively been taken over by the Academies Education Trust (AET), which sponsors 14 schools in England.

A headteacher at the time said that since the government had announced it was raising floor targets (the minimum standard of attainment), academy chains were eyeing up failing schools, hoping to take advantage of their misfortune.

But, despite parachuting in a new head and deputy head, it seems the AET is yet to make its mark on the academy. After a recent Ofsted inspection, the school has been placed in special measures, the Guardian has learned.

A spokesperson for the AET said they would not be able to comment until the report had been published by Ofsted."

Well to be honest I was following up on John Worrows post about the difficulties encountered by gay teenagers, which like so many of his posts is now deleted, so I was googling away trying to work out what the problems are for the youf locally.

The picture is of a Chatham House School production, see http://thanetonline.blogspot.com/2010/08/chatham-house-ramsgate-school.html

I find it a bit strange that The Marlowe Academy has mopped up so much public money and still appears to failing the youf of today. It started out as Conyngham School when it opened in 1963, named after The Marquess of Conyngham, hope I spelt all that OK, there were unfortunate associations with the C word when it came to hurling insults, although I doubt that is why the name was changed to The Ramsgate School. Now however rebuilt as The Marlowe Academy one wonders will they change the name again.

 As you see from the picture the young Christopher Marlowe could easily have played a girl in the school play once the facial fungus had been removed. Christopher didn’t make it to thirty as he was stabbed to death not long after being arrested, probably for heresy. The arrest not the stabbing I mean, perhaps that is why he was stabbed too.  


To quote Marlowe himself “while the boy, naive and unaware of Greek love practices, said that, "You are deceiv'd, I am no woman” 


Anyway while I was contemplating the likelihood of homophobia being greater of lesser among the pupils of a school named after Marlowe, who must hold the accolade of being one of the stately homos of England. I came across this rather disturbing article about the way we are failing our youth here in Thanet yet again. 


Bit of a fragmented post today with the bookshop being busier than usual, an interesting addition to the Ramsgate business for sale here http://www.primelocation.com/uk-property-for-sale/details/id/TEPA2409687/  

Back to John Worrow’s blog and before I go further I think it would be apposite for me to produce some sort of joke relating to him and homosexuality.

This one relates to you having the right screen size and browser, assuming you have the right conditions and you have opened his website you should have a tab reading John Worrow – Your Camp.  

Ok it wasn’t that funny, but it was only to prove the point that there is a difference between humour and homophobia, even when that humour is linked to a person’s sexual preferences.

John’s latest post http://worrowsworld.blogspot.com/2012/01/fair-play-statement.html seems to be saying that Simon Moores isn’t homophobic and James, I assume he means James Maskell isn’t a bigot.

I won't bother to comment there as the post and all of its comments will probably vanish like the two previous ones about, teenage homophobia and homophobia in the Church of England, both of these subjects interest me and I would have commented on the posts, had I not expected them to be deleted.     

I will start with The Church of England and tackling homophobia.  

I would guess that the church as a whole are in a difficult position on this one, I think there is a genuine desire to change attitudes and a complex biblical and doctrinal history going back a very long time to overcome.

I would reckon that the Church of England is making more progress on this and other discrimination issues than most, and most of the other world religions don’t really seem to have started on the issue.

With the female clergy issue a lot of people have left the Church of England for other churches where they don’t have any female clergy. 

One wonders just where this will all go, I suppose απελουσασθε απελουσασθε means therefore Εδικαιωθητε (St Paul’s own words) as a non practicing homosexual better have a look at http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/the-gay-churchman-and-an-unholy-row-6290223.html if you don’t know what I am talking about, and the Greek is 1 Corinthians 6:11.

On to the victimisation of gay youth although staying for a moment with the theme of males in dresses, more of the photos from the Chatham House productions here http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/chathamhouse/ a consideration being how one works out, at an age where it is difficult to tell what sex some people are, who it is one is attracted to and what ones orientation is, I do wonder if gay youth have a category that is separate from youth.

Anyway having read John’s post I spent an edifying evening looking at some of the Stonewall statistics, after which I had a look at some of the surveys from outside the gay community, frankly as far as I can see, things are bad in teenage word of sexuality in the UK. 

See http://www.womensaid.org.uk/domestic-violence-press-information.asp?itemid=1783&itemTitle=Women%92s+Aid+launches+teenage+domestic+violence+campaign+with+Bliss+magazine&section=0001000100150001&sectionTitle=Press+releases and http://www.nspcc.org.uk/news-and-views/media-centre/press-releases/2009/09-09-01-teen-girls-abused-by-boyfriends/09-09-01_teen_girls_abused_by_boyfriends_warns_NSPCC_wdn75755.html

I would say that one way and another something has gone badly wrong with our society. 

Oh well here’s one of the pictures I took today.

   Three threes plus four fours is the same as five fives.

David Hockney and other thoughts about art in fact a Sunday ramble

David Hockney portrait, well a quick sketch really as he was on the today program this morning, apparently he is the greatest living artist, what with Richard O'Dwyer being extradited to America to stand trial for breach of copyright, where if found guilty he could be locked up for years, I am being naturally cautious about using any pictures from elsewhere on the web, hence the sketch.  

I guess it isn’t so funny down Graduate Lane these days, some of the things we did when we were students, dear oh dear.

Not quite sure how you measure the greatness or for that matter smallness of an artist, however I would guess that whatever the measurement I would count as one of the smallest.

What’s all this got to do with Thanet? Well I suppose I was thinking about our own Turner Contemporary art gallery and what sort of future it has, after all David is showing a new exhibition at The Tate http://www.royalacademy.org.uk/exhibitions/hockney/tickets/ starting this week. At £14 per ticket and booking strongly recommended there may be some potential for The Turner to recoup.

Would I go over to Margate and spend £14 to look at these pictures? Well the answer is yes I would, would people come from all over the place and pay to look at an exhibition like the Hockney one? I think the answer is that they probably would.

I was trying to do a sketch of our own dear Tracey Emin that wasn’t as unkind as my previous ones, as I don’t really think that caricature is the way I want to go with the pencil, when the Today program came on.

Although I don’t use the rubber much for adjustment, I guess most of the whole sketches get rubbed out to make room for more, most just aren’t any good, here are this mornings http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/laptop112/id5.htm you see what I mean.

I thought though the Hockney one had better have a bit of watercolour, pencil sketches don’t seem to agree with my camera, which seems to make the paper rather grey and the pencil rather grey.    

I had a chat about the Turner gallery with an artist friend the other day, he didn’t think as much of the youf exhibition as I did, badly hung, he said, the early Turners I said, dreadful he said. Well I won the Turner argument on the palate, which in my opinion hardly changed from when the gallery label said he was 9 but I thought were done when he was 11. Badly labelled I conceded.  

What with Miliband saying that if Labour get in the cuts will go on and one thing or another I guess there will come a time when the Turner will have to look to its laurels, so I wonder out of the 300,000 was it in seven months and guessing only a third would be going too look at the pictures. The rest going to use the café, which after all is the only bit if the building that has the window pointing the right way, at the sunset, that is, or to use the loos, they could still be looking at £1,400,000 I guess more than enough to run the gallery.  

Incidentally a useful tip if you want to add watercolour to a pencil sketch, is to spray it with fixative first as this prevents the pencil from smudging.

Back to David Hockney, it may interest people that for the last few years David, I guess since 2001as my copy of his book about this, “Secret Knowledge” and I doubt he would have said much about it before the book was published, or it wouldn’t have sold that well, came out then. David has been working on a theory that some of the old masters where not as masterly as we thought.

The gist of the thing is that hundreds of years before film was invented they were using something like a camera without film and putting their paper, canvas or possibly even slate where the film would go.

It seems there are a lot more left handed people than one would expect in great paintings, because the lens, pinhole or whatever turns people into a mirror image so the right handed people become left handed, one to look out for in the gallery.


There are often problems on the blogs with people quoting other people wrongly or out of context and a certain amount of editing has to be done, however imagine the difficulties for the people who quoted Martin Luther King Jr. out of context in granite, see http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/mlk-memorials-drum-major-quote-will-be-corrected-interior-secretary-says/2012/01/13/gIQAnjYvwP_story.html?hpid=z2 

I guess that as the day progresses I may watch the various Martin Luther King speeches on youtube and have a go at drawing him. Frankly I find it easiest to get a likeness drawing women aged between about 20 and 50. So a black man may present too much of a challenge for me.

I also have considerable difficulty telling if I have managed to get a likeness of anyone because I have a mental block when it comes to recognising anyone. The people who know me well tend to remind me of who they are, it isn’t a case of all black people looking the same to me, but one of trying to recognise who people are regardless of anything much. In fact Jocelyn who is the sectary of the Ramsgate Society and I see about once every two months, the problem goes away with people who I see most weeks, despite the fact that he is a tall black Jamaican, knows me well enough to say, hello Michael it’s Jocelyn when he comes into the bookshop. 

So yes despite the fact that I have drawn him several times if David Hockney came into my bookshop I would probably only get a bit of a notion that I ought to recognise him and try and sos out during any conversation who he actually was. 

When it comes to the watercolouring there is no such thing as a black or white person, just various mixes of red yellow brown and sometimes blue, I suppose if one was really good at it, it would be possible to make up all of the colours from red yellw and blue, like a colour printer does.    

I will ramble on, probably.

Here is a first attempt, to illustrate the point, trying to get at what makes this individual different from the rest of the individuals on the planet.

What I am saying is something like I am in the right ball park and then there is the human propensity to see what we expect to see, I couldn’t for instance draw the inside of a mask, it’s impossible, no matter how well I drew it, your brain would turn the back of a mask into the front of a mask, because it has a propensity to see human faces the right way out.    

After my first attempt at drawing MLK we had a power failure, one thing I can’t do is draw without fairly good light and by the time we had done all the things that needed daylight, that was it. The power is back on now but it is really too late in the day to have another go.

A Shop in Margate High Street

 A businessman friend of mine called in to see me today, he is in the fine arts business and like so many people his business has moved onto the internet, obviously talk turned to the Turner Contemporary and the potential commercial spin-offs.

Would he consider trading in Margate? The main thing that seemed to put him off was the level of business rates, this surprised me as the business rates on my shop in King Street Ramsgate are fairly low and as I qualify for small business rates relief, rates are not a major consideration.

It seems that he looked at a few shops in Margate High Street that could be bought or rented reasonably cheaply, but the rateable values were consistent with a thriving shopping centre, roughly similar to those in the middle of Canterbury.

I just had a look at this and frankly the rateable values seem to be all over place, see http://www.2010.voa.gov.uk/rli/en/basic/find/select/_params/page/4 I hope the link works.

There is also a sort of cut off point with small business rates relief and not knowing if the relief will last for a few years, which complicates the problem.

I haven’t gone into this one in great detail as I ran out of time and though that posting the general idea on the blog could attract some informative comment.

The next bit is really wild guesswork, but may help some people who have no notion of any of all of this form some sort of mental framework to make judgments with.

I am also thinking of the larger of the small shops here, big enough for some stock and working very roughly I will use 10 square feet to equal one square metre to explain where I am coming from here.

I would guess a medium sized small shop would be about 1,000 square feet or 100 square meters and I would guess that in a bad site like Margate High Street the rent should be about £100 per week, giving a rateable value of £5,000 per year, with the precept and no rates relief this would mean rates of about £50 per week.

In the middle of Canterbury I would expect the same shop to have a rent of about £1,000 per week and rates of about £500.

 The pictures in this post are all from the book I publish, Margate and Westgate With Birchington 1903-04, see http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/catalogue/margate_and_westgate_with_birchington_1903_04.htm interesting as I believe this is the first one to have photographic advertisements and therefore photos of many of the Margate shops that you date accurately.

The pictures would have been taken in 1902 or early 1903, I guess opening a shop in the High Street then would have been easier.

I will ramble on here as I work out what is reality and what is supposition. 

I suppose this book and how it came to be published may help with understanding the type of problem that exists in retail today. Margate Museum had a copy of it and about three years ago the then sectary of the Ramsgate Society tried to borrow it from them so I could copy it and do a reprint of it, so that it would be accessible to local people.

They wouldn’t play ball, so I bought a copy of the original, probably best not think about the price here. Anyway I have done a reprint of it and I suppose of all the books about Margate from this period it really is the most desirable item. I would say that most people in Margate would like to own a copy frankly at a tenner the reprint is pretty good value, about the cost of an average lunch out.

Then there is the problem of selling it in Margate, where there isn’t a bookshop, WH Smith is part of a big chain and don’t want to play ball, the tourist information office did stock our books for a while, but I think their bureaucracy beat them in the end. So at the moment most people come over from Margate to my bookshop in Ramsgate to buy it and a few order it online.  

What I am getting at here is that it is a reasonable and saleable product, with a reasonable demand in Margate wanting a shop to sell it.

Coming back the High Street problem, in the first instance my guess is that towns need a shopping centre to be towns, I would say that without this they become little more than housing estates. I also think that once the town centre has been fragmented by putting residential on the ground floor where the shops were there is really no way back. This situation is made much more difficult because most people wouldn’t want to live on the ground floor in the town centre. There is a strange way that because of housing benefit and a general housing shortage that people are made to live where they wouldn’t normally want to and a sort of minimum rent develops that doesn’t entirely reflect what would happen in a truly open market.  

There is also a situation where it is much more difficult for rents and rates to fluctuate in a way that represents supply and demand. Also there is the charity shop, in many cases I find it both hard to understand how the economics of some charity shops actually works, or if the charity involved derives anything much from them.