Day off ramble.

Before the flack starts flying and as Don has broken the news I should point out that the decision by Flybe to pull out of Manston in March was made before the change in administration and I am told has nothing to do with night flights.

It’s nearly Christmas and I have primary school children who are on holiday, their excitement is fairly extreme so please excuse more than the usual level of errors.  


Lunch at the café on the promenade in Westgate today, I tried a watercolour of the sea while the children were eating up, consuming the enviable ice cream etc and although the watercolour didn’t turn out any good, I think I am finally getting used to painting and drawing in public.


With the night flights issue, I suppose one answer would be to allow Manston the proportion of night flights to day flights as that enjoyed by Gatwick and Heathrow.    

The pictures in this post were taken in Birchington and Westgate today.

More thoughts about Manston, I think the hope was that the better road network would make it work a regional airport, evidently this has failed. I don’t think any better rail network would help that much as if you are going by train and then plane from the southeast then it’s going to be one of the main London airports.

I think that KIA are hoping that freight will pull them through somehow, but as most of the freight will be heading for the M25 it seems unlikely that this will work.

What I don’t think Infratil have thought through here is that they only have three options, sell the airport, close it to save money or continue to subsidise it to the tune of around £1m per year. Well I guess there are no takers for buying it and they have gone down the subsidise it route, so far so good and then they seem to have thrown common sense out of the window.

Once they had made the decision that they were going to run it at a considerable loss, they then went down the road of engaging in activities that generated bad publicity.

I would say the way off the ground for Manston would be to exploit the historic aviation and to make it a tourist attraction. I doubt that the recent sanctions business which highlighted that people would still prefer to fly from Heathrow or Gatwick even when the plane was going to land and takeoff from Manston, exactly enhanced the airlines view of it as a viable destination.      

The decision has been on the cards for some time and I heard it had been confirmed over weekend and mentioned this to Simon who said he had already heard about it. But then it isn’t the place local bloggers to jump the gun on this sort of information, however is does show readers the position that bloggers are often in, sitting on information that for one reason or another it is better not to publish, and I suppose one would have looked a bit of a clot if they had changed their minds. 

I will ramble on. 

Thanet District Councillors, some idle speculation.

 Looking over the recent events and blog dialogues I am trying to form an accurate picture of what has happened with our district government here in Thanet.

Call it for historical record if you like, I have been trying to ask some fairly searching questions of both councillors and others with an interest in our local politics both on and off line.

 The main theme here is about how different parts of Thanet are treated under different administrations.

An example of what I mean here is say Birchington and Westgate have fairly similar shopping centres and layouts, Westgate has a Conservative cabinet member as a councillor and has free parking, Birchington doesn’t and doesn’t. In fact judjing by recent events all of the Birchington councillors seemed happy to vote against the party line on the parking issue.

 OK this is probably just coincidence but it gives you the idea of where I am coming from.

The searching questions I have been asking are of a more serious nature, these really relate to the way Ramsgate was treated under the last eight years of Conservative Government at district level and were some of the things that happened motivated by spite by a Conservative controlled council towards an area where the councillors were predominantly Labour.

What has happened to council owned assets in the town look to be something more than could be achieved by coincidence.

 Some of the things that happened looked and until they are explained, still look, like acts of spite, where everyone lost. The Historic Ship Pontoon is an example of what I mean.

For anyone who doesn’t know about this, there is a condemned pontoon with limited services opposite the café culture, with the noise and late night antisocial behaviour you would expect, this effectively makes it unletable, in terms of ordinary leisure craft moorings. The council let these moorings to historic vessels at reduced mooring fees.

Everyone gained from this state of affairs, the historic vessel owners got reduced mooring fees, the council got fees where they otherwise wouldn’t, the café culture was enhanced by view of the historic vessels opposite.

The council decided to stop this arrangement, so the pontoon is empty. There may be an explanation, but I have asked and none has been forthcoming.

The other day I heard that Ramsgate swimming pool had been delayed because of an argument as to whether a pedestrian could pass a bicycle on a two metre path, I probably got the wrong end of the stick here and it was two feet, which does sound like a reasonable problem. However this got me thinking if some of the other things, particularly those related to council owned property in Ramsgate, could be explained as spite directed at the Labour group by the Conservative group.

Pleasurama on the surface may look like a series of unfortunate mistakes that has lead to it being a building site for the entire duration of the Conservative administration. But suppose a serious attempt is ever made to develop it, a proper flood risk and cliff condition assessment and proper foundations going into the chalk bedrock I would imagine would be indicators of this. The council would have liability for both the cliff behind and the sea defences in front of it a difficult position, what could possibly the motives that lead to the Conservative group going against the advice of the council’s chief financial officer and issuing agreements that put it in this position?

The maritime museum is another one, well the list goes on.

Now I would say that there is a fairly general consensus that the old Conservative administration, the one before the one that has just been deposed, had much to be desired. So a very big question to the new Conservative administration, is what have they been doing for the last seven months?

Two ex cabinet members have been very noticeable in the recent blog debate but have dodged around these questions, one seems to be baiting John Worrow at the end of the thread http://birchington.blogspot.com/2011/12/parking-matters.html I am wondering what the motive could be in this, as John does seem to be in position of some influence in Thanet politics at the moment.

Would the Labour group create a cabinet post for John? It seems unlikely, would the Conservatives group take John back, that seems unlikely too.

So what were and are the motives of the Conservative group? Do they intent to try and seize power back and what will be their intentions if they do? Do they perhaps intend to have some sort of shadow cabinet reshuffle?

The main Labour presence on the Blogs at the moment is Will Scobie, I believe that he is the only councillor on either side who has had any professional training in politics, so this may be a shrewd move on the part of the Labour group.

I am hoping we will see some activity on the presently dormant Labour blogs http://eastclifframsgate.blogspot.com/ and http://newingtonblogspot.blogspot.com/ perhaps these two experienced Labour councillors are biding there time.

There is of course the possibility of some sort of reorganisation of the Labour cabinet that could include them, I believe it was the Conservatives that reduced the size of the cabinet.

I suppose one aspect of the last Conservative cabinet that seemed unwise was combining a major portfolio with the position of leader, makes one wonder really. 

All of the pictures in this post are of well known parts of Thanet, I wonder how many you can identify?


We now come to some speculation about the new leader Clive Hart, I don’t think I have ever met him and in the fullness of time I will put some of the local issues to him, probably as open letters, as I did with the previous leadership.

Just after he became elected a well known Conservative blogger seemed to be saying that Clive is a bit of a slow person, this didn’t seem to tally with him working for 15 years as a supply electrician. A Live Sparks with slow reactions would be unlikely to survive 10 years, particularly with a few apprentices about, you know how it is with young people and their rather direct sense of humour.

Some people seemed to be saying that he would be a bit of a puppet leader, but this doesn’t ring right with someone who was a union pay negotiator, something that is usually synonymous with the word shrewd. 

I may ramble on here.

The Zen of the local Conservative Groups and Labour groups online.

Since the Conservatives lost the confidence vote in their leader there has been an increased Conservative internet presence, with what I take as a genuine attempt to communicate with local people.

The latest one of these forays into hyperspace being today’s news announcement on The South Thanet Conservative Website.

Statement regarding Cllr Bob Bayford http://www.souththanetconservatives.org.uk/news/statement-regarding-cllr-bob-bayford

“Friday, 16 December, 2011

Owing to the defection of Cllr John Worrow (Conservative - Birchington, North Thanet), the leadership of Thanet District Council has been taken by Cllr Hart (Labour).  Cllr Bob Bayford and the Conservative group have our total support.” 

Although the thing is dated last Friday it only appeared today, a bit like some of the TDC press releases do.

This is a bit of a strange one as I had sort of assumed that the Thanet District Council Conservative Group already had the support of The South Thanet Conservative Association, perhaps there is some strange code here that you need to be in local politics to follow. 

To me it seems to fall into the same bracket as the statement “The Titanic is unsinkable” as it immediately begs the question: Who said that The South Thanet Conservative Association didn’t support Cllr Bob Bayford et al.

Anyway I had a look at the North Thanet Conservative Association website http://ntca.org.uk/index.html this is very odd and seems to suggest that they think the internet may be something important, but haven’t used it yet.

After this I was prompted to look at the opposition, first The North Thanet Labour Group and then The South Thanet Labour Group.

http://www.souththanetlabour.org.uk/

http://www.thanet-labour-group.org.uk/

http://www.btinternet.com/~poole/

 

If North Thanet Labour exist on the internet I couldn’t find it, perhaps it was blown away by Roger Gale.

I may ramble on a bit about this.   

Parking in the Thanet towns

I went to the Turner Contemporary yesterday afternoon.

The weather was very cold so I parked in the car park between the old town and the high street, new machine there that was confusing people. I wanted three hours parking and I think two was about £1.20 so I put £2 in and it only allowed me 2 hours, this meant that I didn’t have time to visit the small shops.

There were two parking attendants on Sunday afternoon in the freezing wind giving visitors to the gallery parking tickets to enhance their Thanet leisure experience.

I wonder how cost effective this is.

I am mastering the camera on my mobile phone and was pleased with the one of The Kiss, I wanted to take a picture of the sculpture, that could only be achieved in The Turner Contemporary, for the chap who works at The Tate and allowed us to take pictures of The Kiss here.   

I believe it was Victoria Pomery who was mainly responsible for getting The Kiss in Thanet an I am working up to producing a watercolour that incorporates her in a picture of the sculpture as a thank you too.

I don’t have much difficulty with face on and quarter profile likenesses but the total profiles needed when there faces share two eyes I find difficult so I wanted a lot of shots of the sculpture.  

Back to the parking issue. The bit of Ramsgate I trade in used to be on a very busy road until Ramsgate town centre was pedestrianised and since then there is very little traffic flow as King Street and the surrounding streets only leads to the car park. However since the reduction in traffic, there has been a considerable increase in double yellows on this area.

Conversely where there is much more traffic near one of the local schools and the new Tesco, some aspects of the parking appear fairly dangerous.

The road behind my bookshop where I used to park my van across my own garage gates, is a dead end and now has double yellow lines, I certainly wonder why

The most extraordinary application of the parking rules that I have ever seen is the road to nowhere behind Ramsgate Sands, the combination of no loading and double yellow lines on this quiet road with no through traffic, suggests a degree of malice directed towards tourism in Ramsgate of maniac proportions, see http://thanetonline.blogspot.com/2011/06/yellow-peril-at-ramsgate-main-sands.html

Incidentally the main Thanet blogs sem to have gone parking mad today see:

http://bignewsmargate.blogspot.com/2011/12/information-for-cllr-worrow.html

http://birchington.blogspot.com/2011/12/parking-matters.html

great minds thinking alike? 

I will ramble on here.

Who is Smudger, the Isle of Thanet Gazette Columnist?

Is it Rebecca Smith the Editor of The Isle of Thanet Gazette? This seems to be a forgone conclusion on Thanet Life, see http://birchington.blogspot.com/2011/12/first-casualty-of-circulation.html and is Smudger after Simon’s colon, wife or even child?

Do we have a News of the World situation here, see Tony Bignews http://bignewsmargate.blogspot.com/2011/12/time-on-my-side.html who is missing his Sunday morning paper.      

More elusive posting on Worrows World, see http://worrowsworld.blogspot.com/2011/12/in-run-up-to-2012-local-council.html probably best not a quick sketch for this one.


Meanwhile on Will Scobie’s blog Chris Wells and Peter Checksfield are trying to identify an anonymous commentator who says they are an ex Conservative Councillor, see http://williamscobie.blogspot.com/2011/12/more-time-for-politics.html probably best not a sketch for this one either. 


Of course Simon Moores, Chris Wells, Peter Checksfield, Will Scobie, John Worrow, Tony Flaig all have something in common with me, which is they engage in open internet forums under their real names. You may not agree with what they say, but at least you know who they are. 

Obviously vague imaginary sketches of anonymous newspaper columnists are fair game as are artists, the prime minister, with local councillors I have been very restrained so far with what you could call rather tasteful drawings.

A question though, with a new administration which I hope will be a little more lightharted, are councillors fair game for the odd cartoon sketch?

I may ramble on this Sunday morning as I try to follow the other Thanet blogs.

Day off ramble, Tracey Emin, Westwood Cross, Ramsgate Town Centre.

Tracey Emin has just got the highly prestigious post of Eranda Professor of Drawing at The Royal Academy Schools of art.

One of my problems in life has been my drawing ability, I would say that the victims generally don’t like it very much, I very nearly got expelled from school over it and have only recently taken it up again. Well of course I wouldn’t dare use one of Tracey’s drawings to illustrate this post because of the copyright implications, so I have used one of my own.

Christopher Le Brun, president of the Royal Academy, said he was "delighted" with Emin's appointment and Eileen Cooper, keeper of the Royal Academy Schools, said: "In the history of the Royal Academy, we've never had a female professor before. I'm proud and delighted by this development."

I have to say I wish Tracey all the luck in the world with this one, it isn’t something I would like to have to teach as often the results are unpredictable.

I went to Westwood Cross today, something I rarely do and once again was struck by the restrictions of the infrastructure, having spent about half an hour in a traffic jam we eventually managed to park. One is only too aware that the number of shoppers there, is limited by the number who can actually get there and park.

The net result of all this is when we got into the shops they weren’t especially busy.

With all of the depressing news about shops and traditional town centres, I really can’t understand what is happening in Ramsgate town centre at the moment, nearly all of the previously empty shops seem to have been taken, a lot by national chains and have either reopened or are about to.

I am learning to sew at the moment so you can say this post is the displacement therapy while I work what I work out just what it is I have done wrong.

So be warned I may ramble on some more, in fact if the piece of fabric I am working on at the moment doesn’t soon respond to the fine tuning sledgehammer it may be a very long post indeed.   

Thanet Under the Red Flag, government by the people for the people?

A week in politics is a long time, and by the end of tomorrow the new Labour leadership will have had a week to settle down, I will be tackling them about local issues, mostly Ramsgate issues, not because I think Ramsgate should have any preferential treatment, but because Ramsgate is where I am and it is the issues that I understand the best.

It does look as though the new administration are going to be a bit better at with the internet, I have already received and posted their press release about last night’s cabinet meeting, see http://thanetpress.blogspot.com/2011/12/new-tdc-labour-cabinet-leading-by.html

Nothing yet from the opposition, perhaps they are yet to find their feet in this position, they don’t even seem to have posted details of their shadow cabinet.

Well I say nothing, there is the rather strange post on Cllr Simon Moores’s blog Thanet Life, see http://birchington.blogspot.com/2011/12/touch-of-class.html saying that he received a notification from the new leader on sub standard stationary.

At first I thought this was supposed to be humorous, it seems that Simon craved Basildon Bond, which is I believe stationary used mostly by the lower middle classes.

At least it seems Simon knows his place, Clive Hart on the other hand is harder to judge, in terms of political manuscripts on lined paper I was a bit spoiled for choice. 

I may ramble on if I get time.  

A couple of other notes here:

First there has been a large influx of forged banknotes, especially £20 notes into Thanet, you can normally check that they are ok inconspicuously as the writing “BANK 0F ENGLAND” is raised on the real ones and you can feel it even in a dimly lit bar.

The other is that TDC have just fed a two week old press release and it has just appeared on Simon’s blog in the two week ago position as though nothing has happened in between, well I thought it was funny.    

One view of the Thanet blogs

The whole Thanet blogging scene like the Thanet political scene is on the change so I have updated http://thanetblogs.blogspot.com/ adding Will Scobie’s blog and Ville Views blog to the site.

The idea of http://thanetblogs.blogspot.com/ is to be able to keep up with the comment as well as the posts on the main Thanet blogs, it’s very much an old fashioned, seat of the pants no frills computing site, lifting the info very quickly from the other sites.

I find it particularly useful when using an internet phone to keep up with the local dialogue.

Still on the computing front, do you reckon you could tell a phishing site from a real one, try the quiz at http://www.opendns.com/phishing-quiz/ I got two wrong, although this was because I was a bit over cautious.

Anyone recognise the picture above and what’s happened?

The answer shown in the picture above, if you look carefully at the first picture the one at the top of the post, you will see this lump had become detached at the bottom where someone has driven into it.

Amazing design a concrete lump too low to see at the end of disabled parking spaces, perhaps the disabled drivers bumping into them is some sort of Turnip Prize exhibit.