Ramsgate November morning walk.

I find I am getting an increasing number of emails from people asking me to put up more of my casual snaps of Ramsgate.

I don’t usually take my larger camera with me and my smaller one is a bit of a slow antique, anyway spurred on by the request here are this mornings pictures click on the links.

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/blogpicts11/id25.htm

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/blogpicts11/id26.htm

By way of further explanation most of the people who want to see these casual snaps, either can’t get out themselves because they are ill, old or both, or they are people who used to live here and don’t anymore.

Today’s walk started about 7am, I then came back to the bookshop about 7.45, to get the children’s breakfast and take them to school and carried on with my walk from about 8.55 getting back to the shop about 9.20 to open for 9.30, the last few were taken in King Street when I went to Rook’s the butcher to get some meat.

HOTEL FACADE DEMOLISHED

The beautiful facade of the fire damaged hotel in Northdown Road, Cliftonville, is being demolished and Thanet District Council appear unaware that the work is taking place.

Ward Cllr. Clive Hart said "I am not at all happy with developments regarding the fire damaged building in Northdown Road.

Some time ago now TDC officers assured me that they would keep a very close eye indeed on the demolition work taking place at the rear of the property and that they would make sure the work was legally halted before the demolition company got through to the beautiful old facade in the main Northdown Road.

However, TDC officers appeared unaware that the facade was being worked on until I rang them Wednesday morning to inform them of what was happening.

I am absolutely wild about this, so many people, adjacent businesses and local residents, were 'kept in the dark' whilst the work was carried out and now it is just too late.

TDC is supposed to be attempting to create a conservation area in Cliftonville, yet it appears our District leadership can't even make sure that work on a highlighted prime site in Northdown Road is monitored correctly".

Published by Cllr. Clive Hart - 44 Northdown Road, Cliftonville. CT9 2RW.

Ed. I think Clive is onto something quite interesting here, this is to do with protecting our local buildings that are not in themselves of great architectural significance but are part of an overall context that makes our towns identifiable as our towns.
Click on the link to see what I mean http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/NorthdownRoad/id9.htm

This in fact works the other way too where areas of important architectural significance are restored and new buildings built, in keeping with their surroundings that the areas lose much of their individuality.

For one reason and another, I often visit Cambridge, St Albans and Canterbury, beautiful as the architecture is these town centres have all had the same treatment and I find my eye staring to tire in ordinary parts of these towns centres, in a way that it doesn’t tire in Thanet.

To be honest what with the shops all being the same, one is often hard put to tell which of these towns one is in.

Euroferries Bonanza – all painted up and ready to go.

My understanding is that it is due to arrive in Bolougne over the weekend.

Stephen Ladyman MP said: “I can’t wait to see the vessel finally arrive in Ramsgate. It could make a real difference to the Town so I have all may fingers crossed.”

Euroferries Ramsgate/ Bologne service

Euroferries is pleased to confirm that the high speed ferry, Bonanza Express since last week has been undergoing final preparations by FOSA' in Tenerife for its transfer to Boulogne.
Arrangements including dreging are in hand at both Ports in support of Euroferries new Ramsgate/ Bologne service scheduled to commence on the 14th November.

Royal Sands Ramsgate some a few more thoughts on the access road.

This photograph (above) is the only one I have that predates the building of the incline and the sands station, I think it’s about 1850 the building in the foreground is the coastguard station, the others relate to the various shipbuilding activates that took place there.

As you see they resolved the problem of cliff falls then by keeping an area at the bottom of the cliff clear for them to land on.

The three photographs above I think are probably all pre-war, any help dating them accurately is always appreciated. I am not sure when the dilapidation of the bottom of the incline started to occur and any help on that would be appreciated.

Obviously the council knocked down the main theatre building (Nero’s) about 12 years ago, the rest though where the derelict open arches are, does anyone know how and when this happened.
The photograph above must date from an earlier time, my guess is before 1910 and shows the whole Granville Marina development much at its designer intended.

Something of historical interest here is that the Granville Marina incline is the first of the seafront inclines in Ramsgate and predates Madeira Walk.

Prior to its construction to get from the hotels and houses on Ramsgate’s select Eastcliff by horse and carriage, one would have had to have gone down Plains of Waterloo and through the town.

To promenade from the Eastcliff to the sands one would have had to go down Augusta steps and over the railway bridge at the bottom, these considerations may seem to be of minor import today, perhaps less so to the Victorians.

It is important to remember that this whole construction was about seaside entertainment click on the link for some more pictures http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/blogpicts11/id24.htm

Sorry if I am rambling a bit here I am trying to put together an historical picture of this little area of Ramsgate.

I will add to this one as the day goes on.

Ramsgate Royal Sands Development access and some thoughts on the councils attitude to public safety.

Just a quick Monday morning update on the state of the arches that support the access road to the new development.

These are the ones that the council assure me can support a road on top of them with a forty tonne weight limit.

Click on the link for more pictures all taken in the last few weeks http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/blogpicts11/id20.htm sorry if some of them are a bit blurry, parts of this structure are a bit dark and I should have taken a professional flash with me.

I won’t go into which cracks worry me the most, as doubtless I will get involved in some pointless dialogue about my qualifications, I suggest you all put your civil engineering hats on and make your own minds up.

Anyway have a think about the picture above, take into account that this is a council owned structure, consider for a moment if you owned a structure in this condition in Thanet, what sort of action the council would take to get you to repair it.

Also consider that this structure hasn’t been properly secured to stop people getting into it at any time that I can remember in the last forty years.

This is a prime site in the main leisure area of Ramsgate, where children play.

Oh I should add it has a broken sewer in it that floods the area with sewage when we get heavy rain, anyone else fancy complaining about this I have tried and failed.

The answers I get are along the lines of our civil engineers have inspected it and say it is perfectly safe.

I have just added some pictures from this mornings walk for anyone who can’t get out at the moment click on the link to view http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/blogpicts11/id21.htm

Drug classification in the UK and the wrong message to the youf of today.

Speaking as someone who was a teen in the late 60s and the early 70s, who now has teenage children, I feel I can’t just leave this one alone, it’s like a hole in a tooth that must be probed.

From personal experience and from asking them directly, I have to conclude that a very large proportion of those people under 60 have tried cannabis, this means that many of the journalists and politicians discussing this issue have personal experience, some like David Cameron have admitted this.

Now the crux of the problem for me is that if government is going to have a drug classification
system at all, rather than saying that all illegal drugs are equally illegal, then those drugs in each classification must be roughly equally harmful.

By this I mean that if the government put a drug that a large proportion of the population know to be in roughly the same harm bracket as tobacco and alcohol, in the same bracket as a drug that is very harmful indeed, the message they are sending out is that the very harmful drug isn’t as harmful at it really is.

To those of us who are older and more experienced this isn’t so much of a problem, in as much as we have more experience of government advice being inaccurate or just plain wrong, but for younger people trying to assess risks, this message from our government could be very dangerous indeed.

It has been mentioned in high places this week that young people often wish to take some sort of risk with their lives, and I suppose that most of us have to concur on that one, this could be the relatively higher risk of say riding a horse or the relatively lower risk of trying cannabis.

However many would not wish to engage in the much higher risks of playing Russian roulette or injecting heroin, so the information from the government is important here.

I have added a picture of myself as a less experienced youf, someone who looks open to a few new experiences and risks.

There are some obvious problems with the drug legislation in this country, not the least being that it seems to mostly revolve around retribution rather than rehabilitation and education.

We have a situation now where almost everyone knows someone who has got into some sort of drug related problem that has been made considerably worse by the way drug related problems are handled in our society.

Much of this appears to be caused by government more influenced by the media sensationalising the subject, that politicians being influenced by their professional advisors or even their own personal experience.

We have, as an example the leader of the opposition who on the one hand admits to having done something and on the other to make doing that thing punishable by a five year prison sentence.

Consider the situation if this sort of incongruity extended into other areas, something along the lines of; “I did a bit of house breaking or GBH when I was younger but now I can’t see this as any reason why you shouldn’t elect me as the next prime minister” .

I will probably add to this as the day goes on.

Thanet Blogs, pinch and a punch it’s the first of the month.

Once again my web statistics about visitors to this blog, these statistics show where the visitors to this site came from in terms of clicking on a link somewhere else on the internet to get to this site.

This gives a very rough idea of the relative popularity of the other local blogs that have links to this one.

I haven’t done much to sort them out as imagine that they will only be of interest to other local bloggers, most of whom will be fairly IT clued up and will understand their significance.

Visits Pages/Visit
Avg. Time on Site % New Visits Bounce Rate
1. (direct) / (none) 1,353 1.70 00:03:48 19.59% 68.96%
2. google / organic 1,096 1.49 00:01:27 62.50% 76.73%
3. eastcliffrichard.blogspot.com / referral 818 1.53
00:01:48 10.88% 71.76%
4. bignewsmargate.blogspot.com / referral 209 1.28
00:00:46 21.53% 83.73%
5. thanetonline.com / referral 187 1.99 00:03:29 17.65%
58.82%
6. blogger.com / referral 174 2.11 00:07:36 1.15%
60.34%
7. marknottingham.blogspot.com / referral 151 1.08
00:00:21 0.66% 94.70%
8. michaelsbookshop.com / referral 122 2.30 00:02:52
35.25% 60.66%
9. thanetstrife.blogspot.com / referral 113 1.50
00:01:21 25.66% 72.57%
10. images.google.co.uk / referral 110 1.80 00:02:19
66.36% 69.09%
11. thanetcoastlife.blogspot.com / referral 63 2.51
00:05:34 4.76% 38.10%
12. yahoo / organic 54 1.48 00:01:27 87.04% 74.07%
13. eastclifframsgate.blogspot.com / referral 53 1.30
00:00:44 11.32% 73.58%
14. margatearchitecture.blogspot.com / referral 52 1.31
00:01:08 40.38% 76.92%
15. twitter.com / referral 46 1.22 00:01:10 21.74%
80.43%
16. thanetblogs.blogspot.com / referral 45 1.13 00:00:49
0.00% 88.89%
17. images.google.com / referral 35 1.29 00:00:23
91.43% 82.86%
18. google.co.uk / referral 34 1.35 00:00:58 20.59%
85.29%
19. aol / organic 26 1.58 00:00:51 73.08% 80.77%
20. promotethanet.blogspot.com / referral 24 1.54
00:01:39 20.83% 70.83%
21. search.bt.com / referral 21 1.48 00:03:29 76.19%
66.67%
22. ask / organic 19 1.68 00:01:29 89.47% 63.16%
23. startmanstonexpansiongroup.blogspot.com / referral 19
1.47 00:04:04 63.16% 68.42%
24. thanetwaves.blogspot.com / referral 19 1.26 00:02:35
21.05% 84.21%
25. yvonnes-jottings.blogspot.com / referral 19 1.68
00:01:22 10.53% 68.42%
26. google.com / referral 17 1.76 00:00:49 11.76%
47.06%
27. billowrights.blogspot.com / referral 13 1.15
00:00:26 0.00% 92.31%
28. planesoverhernebay.blogspot.com / referral 12 1.33
00:00:54 8.33% 66.67%
29. networkedblogs.com / referral 11 1.45 00:00:55
36.36% 63.64%
30. search / organic 10 1.60 00:04:23 90.00% 60.00%
31. tiscali.co.uk / referral 9 1.33 00:00:25 66.67%
66.67%
32. thanetunderground.blogspot.com / referral 8 3.25
00:14:02 62.50% 25.00%
33. bing / organic 7 1.14 00:00:08 71.43% 85.71%
34. images.google.ca / referral 7 1.14 00:00:05 100.00%
85.71%
35. images.google.com.au / referral 7 1.00 00:00:00
100.00% 100.00%
36. blogs.thanetfinder.com / referral 6 1.00 00:01:14
50.00% 83.33%
37. thandotnet.blogspot.com / referral 6 1.17 00:00:04
33.33% 83.33%
38. thanetpress.blogspot.com / referral 6 2.00 00:01:11
33.33% 66.67%
39. insideandoutofataxi.blogspot.com / referral 5 1.60
00:05:54 20.00% 60.00%
40. thanetstar.com / referral 5 1.20 00:04:32 20.00%
80.00%
41. webmail.aol.com / referral 5 1.40 00:01:17 20.00%
60.00%
42. 4coffshore.com / referral 4 1.00 00:00:00 25.00%
100.00%
43. images.google.de / referral 4 1.25 00:00:06 100.00%
75.00%
44. kenthistoryforum.co.uk / referral 4 1.25 00:00:16
75.00% 75.00%
45. newingtonblogspot.blogspot.com / referral 4 1.75
00:02:00 0.00% 50.00%
46. thanethope.blogspot.com / referral 4 1.00 00:00:00
25.00% 100.00%
47. thanetobserver.blogspot.com / referral 4 1.25
00:00:15 75.00% 75.00%
48. birchington.blogspot.com / referral 3 1.67 00:00:28
100.00% 66.67%
49. images.google.es / referral 3 1.00 00:00:00 100.00%
100.00%
50. images.google.fr / referral 3 1.33 00:00:03 100.00%
66.67%
51. saveourdowns.blogspot.com / referral 3 1.67 00:03:28
100.00% 33.33%
52. 209.85.229.132 / referral 2 2.00 00:00:35 100.00%
50.00%
53. altavista / organic 2 1.00 00:00:00 50.00% 100.00%
54. answers.com / referral 2 1.00 00:00:00 100.00%
100.00%
55. blogged.com / referral 2 2.50 00:02:48 100.00%
50.00%
56. forumeerstewereldoorlog.nl / referral 2 1.00
00:00:00 50.00% 100.00%
57. geraldengland.co.uk / referral 2 168.00 00:55:44
50.00% 0.00%
58. images.google.be / referral 2 1.00 00:00:00 100.00%
100.00%
59. images.google.com.mx / referral 2 1.50 00:00:51
100.00% 50.00%
60. images.google.cz / referral 2 1.50 00:00:08 100.00%
50.00%
61. images.google.ro / referral 2 1.00 00:00:00 100.00%
100.00%
62. ramsgatetourettes.blogspot.com / referral 2 1.50
00:00:34 100.00% 50.00%
63. thegreatdaktari.blogspot.com / referral 2 1.00
00:00:00 0.00% 100.00%
64. toolbar.inbox.com / referral 2 1.50 00:00:55 50.00%
50.00%
65. uk.mc236.mail.yahoo.com / referral 2 3.00 00:03:16
0.00% 50.00%
66. villagevoices.blogspot.com / referral 2 1.50
00:01:34 0.00% 50.00%
67. 10.41.24.5:15871 / referral 1 1.00 00:00:00 100.00%
100.00%
68. bloglines.com / referral 1 1.00 00:00:00 100.00%
100.00%
69. blogsearch.google.co.uk / referral 1 5.00 00:05:19
100.00% 0.00%
70. blogsearch.google.com / referral 1 1.00 00:00:00
100.00% 100.00%