KENT'S SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP (WITH TRAVEL)

I don't have an awful lot of time tonight or any night recently but just so you know, maybe as a taxpayer, or a connoisseur of pointless spending, Kent council have released information concerning travel expenses for Council members.

If your a close follower of these pages, you will remember that I have highlighted, the many hundreds of thousands of pounds, flushed down the drain from the boys and girls in Maidstone(KCC) on what I call their American Adventure.

Since I haven't got the time, please click here for the KM story. One thing I will say is that the story whilst mentioning the thousand spent on "essential" travel for councillors it forgets many thousand wasted other promotional activities in America.

On one trip Alex King, managed to incur costs of £6756, ( Virginia), now to put this in perspective a week for me & Mrs Me in New York cost, approx £2,200 (divide by 2) all in for hotel, taxi from airport, several Broadway shows, museums, sights meals car parking at airport. Alright maybe a business trip involves a bit more expenditure, taxis etc.

Finally here are a couple of quotes from Alex King "When you consider the costs of our American activities, they are a tiny proportion of the county council's overall budget but it has the potential to develop trade and maintain international links. and this cracker "We live in a county where the income per head is below the average for the South East and if we do not help raise the wealth of the county, we will have a problem." Maybe if Kent Council refrained from spending "large" on travel, we'd all be a little richer. The final conclusion has to be if this whole campaign in Virginia had resulted in any investment what so ever, I think Alex King might just have mentioned it. So far we've not seen any evidence of any inward investment, not so much as new McDonald's, Starbucks, KFC (which is just as well since I have just started a new diet).

If anyone in Kent council can prove any real benefit from all this promotional activity in America, which outweighs the cost, I'll make my next posting about Kent Council positive even if I have to invent something. Why Kent even needs a member for International affairs when it takes me 40 minutes to drive across Thanet is beyond me and I suspect you.

A little gem in Ramsgate

Decided I would visit Ramsgate this afternoon, however I thought it would be best to avoid the Eastcliff, you know what those millionaires can be like, particularly when they've only just scrapped into the Sunday Times Rich List.

So I decided I'd go over to the West Cliff, admittedly their a rough and ready crowd, but very hospitable, in fact passing one door, the owners seemed so proud of their place they insisted me & Mrs Me take a gander.

Now I have read all about this credit crunch malarkey but I never realised quite how hard it had bitten over in the south side of the Island, neither I or Mrs Me were quite prepared to see a property in such a poor state of décor, clean and tidy it was but the furnishings and wallpaper looked as if it hadn't been changed since the place had been built.

I would guess that the owners are too proud to go cap in hand for one them grants but perhaps that media millionaire over on the Eastcliff could get one of those TV contacts of his to do a makeover show.

Is this more Labour hypocrisy

Check out David Greens web posting on Eastcliff Matters and his take on the famous Winter Gardens Spat involving Sandy Ezekiel and Doug Clark click here for F***ing T***er!

The thing that strikes me about this posting, is that a petty incident, has been blown out of all proportion on both sides, but even more irritating is that someone who has themselves had their freedom of speech, impinged by threats of referral to the Standards Board of England, should given any judgement by this organisation any credence at all.

The Standards Board of England was set up by Labour and is without doubt a disgrace in a democracy. To have your freedom to speak impinged on for one second corrupts democracy, to then a year or so later find that your "content to wait for the publication of the Standards Board findings before commenting on the detail" seems incredible.

Boys will be boys*

And councilors will be politicians, at the risk of offending just about everyone, the results of Standards Board of England's deliberation, contributes little if anything to either justice or the dignity of public office.Lets just refine the facts a little, it seems a minor fracas, in which personalities clashed at some social do, has resulted in threats bad language etc, this then results in complaints to the standards board of England organisation.

Reprehensible as it all looks, their is nothing here worth wasting the time of yet another government organisation the standards board of England is just one of those overlapping regulatory authorities which frankly serves little purpose other than escalating petty clashes by local councillors into something which they are not, that being something of significance to local democracy.Had those alleged "crimes" amounted to anything more serious, than in my opinion handbags at dawn (or similar) then they should have been referred to Kent constabulary or other agencies , to me all this kerfuffle is just part and parcel of local politics and incredible as it seems even I have been known myself, to go off on one, for instance at work recently my fingers were trapped by some idiot with a bar (used as a lever), at first I said something like " stop! you've caught my fingers", although the guys grip on the English language was fairly limp, I was still surprised when he decide to put all his energy into crushing my digits to a pulp, naturally my next few words contained the word stop and many four letter words as is possible in about ten seconds. Unlike the gentile world of politics, there was no complaint to any authority, and once I'd finished my brief but comprehensive English as a foreign language lesson, master class in abuse, we carried on building a railway as if nothing had happened.

Obviously one shouldn't treat public displays of disharmony too lightly and no doubt, both Sandy Ezekiel and Doug Clark will have their own interpretations opinions etc. on the outcome of the standards board judgement, and probably both feel unjustly treated. I believe that either of the accusations, had the complainants felt strongly enough, should been referred to more experienced agencies.

We ought to learn one thing from this incident, politics is about passion for what we believe is right, and the consequence of the type of incident detailed in the Gazette should be no more than a bit of embarrassment in the local rag. Still its worth remembering that John Prescott who always seemed to me to be a bumbling, populist, knockabout, politician, famous for throwing a punch or two, at some yob, on the election trail, was the prime mover on the creation of the Standards Board of England, which seems ironic since there would appear to be odd flaw in his own conduct.

The Standards Board of England, which is suppose to improve standards of conduct in our councils, actually has a detrimental effect, I have personally have witnessed what I consider interference by council "officers" at meetings, and seen these unelected employees of the council "advise" councillors whether they can speak on issues or not.

I would be surprised if the Standards Board of England will have stopped one bent deal since its creation, what it has done most definitely, just here in Thanet was stop at least one local councillor from writing their blog, and I suspect another more recently, also it prevented at least one councillor from speaking during a debate, either of these proves that this organisation is a complete waste of money, and is corrupting local democracy and handing power to petty officials of limited imagination in councils across the country.

If you type in standards board of England into a search engine you will find a growing number of examples of how this is interfering with local government.

* this could also be applied to girls as well, in my view adults might hide it but under pressure we all revert to childish behaviour

Schools Out

Disappointingly for Thanet school children, it looks as if, the strike by Teachers belonging to the NUT will result in limited school closure in this area, as will be the case across the rest of Kent. Still my recollection of school life is tainted by having gone to one of Kent's third rate secondary schools, hence the rather glib attitude to schools in general and Kent ones in particular.

For me action by the NUT is nothing if not selfish and frankly I hope those who participate harm no one other than themselves, I trust that they have their pay docked pro-rata for time off. The thing about this action, is that for some reason these teachers feel they have some god given right to be immune from the down turn in the economy. Those of us, who live in the commercial world, would be happy to have any guarantee of annual pay increases, since many are being squeezed quite deliberately by a Labour Party whose hierarchy have forgotten where they came from.

It would be comforting to think, those who teach our children had some grip on reality, which if their recent conference is any thing to go by, they haven't, since when not bitching about their pay they decided they would concern themselves with banning this countries armed forces from schools and replacing them with minority religious teachers to complement traditional christian tosh.

I would be surprised if the NUT going on strike has any detrimental effect long term and might actually do some good, if we take this opportunity to examine whether teachers are not already grossly overpaid, particularly when you factor in the cost of generous pensions which although common to the public sector are unsustainable. I would have more respect if the NUT were to strike over something like Kent's grammar school system which favours the affluent, and discriminates against poorer families.

This England

Well tomorrow is St Georges Day, and to be frank it has had little significance to me over the years and I hope will continue to be so.

Still increasingly it is becoming more important for those of us born in say 1950's 60' or 70's to have some unequivocal acknowledgement that English values and traditions are every bit as valid as those of Scotland & Ireland, and that we ought to be able celebrate, Englishness if their is such a thing so St Georges day has earnt more significance than its ever had in recent times.

No doubt if you've stuck with me this far, your either of the opinion that I'm a neo nazi or you share my bewilderment at how England has changed during the last ten years.

It's unlikely that you have the same, daily experiences I have, my work is manual, generally up in London or thereabouts, so I reckon I'm well positioned to observe the great social upheaval in England. I would love for someone high up in the Labour Party to explain to me why its possible that the majority of workforce on a major infrastructure project are not only, not English, British or even EC citizens but clearly have no legitimate right to be in this county other than as tourist.

The only reason I would like to more recognition of St Georges Day is that hopefully it would lead to some acknowledgement, that English people are a people, who may not be as vocal or loud as the Scots or Irish but ought to be entitled to some preferential treatment.

Labour have shown themselves strong in supporting Scotland not surprisingly since many come from the land of Irn-Bru, Whiskey, deep fried Mars bars, and subsidies from the English Tax Payer, and do not care about social justice, as they're happy to rob the poor of 200 pounds a year by taking away the 10p tax rate.

In expressing these opinions I'm probably guilty of who knows what but when you meet people born in this country irrespective of background who are prevented from working and or treated as second class citizens by an increasingly corrupt society lead by the Labour government you have to speak out.

KCC and "communist"!?

I've been busy working this weekend, so have little time to post anything of consequence, still it seems that Kent's business community are waking up, to what I view as the increasingly ludicrous activities of Kent County Council.

Click here for this story from Kent On Sunday website, which will elucidate some of the excesses of KCC and explain the communist reference, and don't panic our Kent Tories might be er witless but I don't think their reds! just .........

When I've have a chance I will give this my full attention, anyway the issue is should KCC be involving itself in the commercial world rather than public services.

The evidence that Paul Carter is leading or running an excellent organisation or whatever the superlative used is wearing very thin.

Thought for Sunday - fair trading or fair cop

As I chomp through my breakfast I am reminded by those enlightening chaps at Kent on Sunday of the story earlier in the week that the Office of Fair Trading is investigating price fixing by a hundred plus construction firms. Of course KOS have put a local spin on this but this to my mind is small beer

To the ordinary person in the street, there is no difference between someone screwing the social, and big business colluding to defraud the public of billions by price fixing. I've not seen it myself but I wait for the day when some CEO receives a prison sentence for fraud, I don't think it will ever happen, like in those cases of corporate manslaughter, its never the bosses fault.

As Towns die could the Isle of Thanet Gazette do better?

I often get the comment from those that know me, as well as those that don't "why don't I do something" about those things that I care passionately about, another comment is "why don't you become a councillor" even more popular "give it a rest"

Well here is the answer firstly frequently spending a couple of hours a day writing this trash is in my book doing something, now I suppose as well as this blog I could send letters to local papers but if I make the effort I honestly do not wish to be edited or censored and since the quality of some of our locals is pretty poor, why do it to yourself, imagine the pain of getting the knock back from say the Adscene or knowing your not good enough to be included in the yourthanet, Gazette or Extra. So I publish my rants, raves and considered opinions here on Bignews Margate.

The issue of becoming a councillor is in my opinion a simple one (apart from getting elected) , to start with, to have any hope of influence, you'd have to cosy up to either the Tories or Labour party, then you'd have to come to terms with the fact that democracy in this country is stifled by central government and worse the Standards Board of England, which is meant stop bent practices but has had, I feel a corrupting effect of censoring free discussion and democracy (I wont go into detail as I covered this a while back).

With that said, on these pages, I have on more than one occasion, covered the role that our inept council parking policy has had in the decline Margate. Anyway you look it, retail business in Margate is on life support and Thanet council have just increased the cost of electricity.

So coming back to the Gazette, which this week covers the problem but does so in what I feel is a particularly annoying, superficial way, take a gander, if you still buy a copy, what you have is a staple of many a gazette piece, a series of people are asked what they think (vox pops) , which in this case is particularly unsatisfying. for this reason. no conclusions are formed or statements challenged oh and its mostly a case of the same old faces.

Sandy Ezekiel is quoted as follows " I think the car parks are full at the moment" to which some journalists might have mentioned that 100's of spaces given away for free to Thanet council staff "I don't think people begrudge paying an extra 50p to park a car" maybe the question could have been asked why traders are losing business then.

The great thing with this blog is if you don't like you can always click elsewhere, but newspapers are different but they should I feel take sides, particularly when the heart of the communities they serve are in need.

Rising cost of contacting your Doctor

If one thing that has changed under Labour, its the attitude of many health care workers, towards patients. Its not long ago, that a call to a doctors, or any part of our national health service might be answered with arrogance and even hostility, fortunately those days seem to have passed and patients are treated more like paying customers, which most of us are.

Doctors surgeries now seem to accept that patients, ring surgeries, not because they want a chin wag, or that they wish to discuss their medical history with a receptionist, but that they have an issue sufficiently troubling to face the professional scrutiny of their GP. These days generally the only bar to getting an appointment is contacting your surgery early in the day, and here's the downside, for some reason Doctors Surgeries are acquiring new phone numbers that have 0844 as a prefix.

For many of us ringing 0844 costs more than normal, if for instance you pay inclusive local calls, then you will pay 5p per minute (inc VAT) with BT, and for many of us who use our mobile the cost is significantly higher in my case 15p per minute, for most of us a trivial cost, however many on lower incomes this is less trivial particularly on prepay phones. In defence doctors would no doubt suggest that the money they earn with these new numbers, help offset the cost of telephone systems, all well and good, but why not charge for seating in waiting rooms, or install a meter in the doctors room, with say a 5 minute consultation @ £5.00 and £1.00 a minute thereafter maybe a tariff for extras like a couple of quid for each additional medical problem or trivial complaint like a cold or asking for a repeat prescription.

A quick trawl through the NHS website, would suggest that a majority of Thanet surgeries have resisted the temptation to charge patients to contact them, which is what most expect the health service to be, free (after we've been Taxed to pay for it).

I don't doubt that doctors practices are run on business lines, but most businesses consider answering the phone as part of their operating costs like, heat, light, staff, etc.

Still I notice that Eastern and Coastal Kent Primary Health Care Trust are having a "roadshow" event about local services in Broadstairs at the Pavilion between 9am & noon April 30th at which you can ask questions, my question would be is there any danger of having a public meeting at a time which suits not just the elderly, welfare dependent and those unemployed, but those earning a living and paying taxes to fund the health service.

Spotted this afternoon - Thought for the day

I noticed on my way home this afternoon, Sandy Ezekiel adjacent to the bottom of Margate High Street, appearing to be showing, our fine Harbour area, to what I take, to be strangers to Margate.

Of course I could be mistaken, since I flashed past on my way home, quite possibly the group might have had nothing to do with him and simply been a party day trippers with a keen interest in road works.

Still assuming Sandy was not en route for a cuppa, and accompanying guests to this town I'd just hear how you put a positive gloss, on all the mayhem, going on adjacent to the harbour as previously mentioned.

Work on the Harbour itself, is money well spent but moving pavements about and destroying the last few parking spaces in town is a different kettle of fish.

100 Reasons for Stephen Ladyman to lose the next Election

The odds of Thanet South, MP Stephen Ladyman returning to Parliament after the next election are getting slimmer, by the day, its not just the economy going down the toilet, or the corrosive effect, of Britain Governed by Scots, the lost of national identity but the very real displacement of local people by migrants.A while back I had a conversation with a couple of co-workers, who couldn't understand how Britain, had allowed a flood of migration, such as we've had in the last two or three years, which given the fact they were both Albanians (resident here for ten years), seemed a tad ironic. Still migration's not the issue here, and Britain is built on absorption of foreigners, the point these blokes made, was that wages were going south, since later migrants, because of their shear numbers were easy meat for exploitation.

So whats this got to do with Stephen Ladyman well, this is the point, the party of which he represents, Labour has done nothing at all to protect, the existing population. Many will feel, whats this got to do with me, well probably nothing, if you work in a profession such as law, accountancy, media, education etc., but for the masses it means that although you think you have a stake in this country, worked all your life, to bring up family and contribute to this countries wealth, it doesn't matter a damn, because labour have engineered a situation where wages are being driven down, schools are under strain, health services under pressure, through stupidity malice or indolence.

Migration has and will always be part of a free and civilised society, but what we've seen in the last few years is utter madness, the government has used the defence for its immigration free for all, of how its boosted the economy, which according to a new report amounts to about 50p a week for the average family, however low income families are actually worse off not surprisingly.

Last weeks Thanet Gazette has an article (page 21) suggesting that Farmers prefer foreign labour, the word flexible is often used when referring to foreign labour, I always wonder if they actually mean exploitable or vulnerable. A local recruitment firm is quoted as saying they have 100 people eager to work on farms, it is not stated but I assume they have difficulty placing people, one presumes that new form of discrimination is taking place Brits against Brits but its not that simple more like the rich discriminating against the working classes.

Labour have become remote take Tony Blair, it looked to me as if he couldn't get out of the country quick enough to cash in after leaving office, I just wonder whether anyone from labour would care to comment, probably not. The thought of all those Labour MPs on the scrap heap at the next election might offer some comfort but it will never compensate those who have witnessed a real fall their standard of living or having a Tory government.

PS Stephen Ladyman on his website has a list of 50 Top achievements you would think increasing the population by 1..2..3... million (nobody actually knows for sure) would show up somewhere in the list.

MARGATE JUST GETS WORSE

This post is for Margate locals and the people of Thanet, visitors, strangers, those of a nervous disposition and local Tories, please look away because everything is just marvelous, now for those of us who live here, this week could not have been worse.Clearly the fire at Dreamland was not the responsibility of our local council or Kent county council, but right now we are all aware that Margate is on its knees, can it get worse?

Lets put the blame firmly where it belongs with our local authorities, exhibit A., The Turner Contemporary Gallery this should have been built and opened by this year had this been managed competently we would be by now experiencing all those promised benefits of affluent visitors to Margate and Thanet. Kent Council must take the full blame since they were meant to be running the project and one assumes chose the design and contractors.

Now we come to exhibit B, Parking policy again traders and residents of Margate will be only too aware that Thanet council effectively commandeer Mill Lane carpark by giving free parking to themselves (Staff are now getting a benefit of £1,200 approx). As a result of this you and I have to pay up to £1.80 per hour to park in the street because all the off street spaces are taken by free loading, council employees. Thanet has if I remember correctly up until now barely made back their operating cost on parking charges, so rather than scrap them the are doing their level best to destroy retail business in Thanet, the council have extended their new draconian anti business policy into Broadstairs I see.

I have not noticed Sandy Ezekiel make any public justification for these outrageous changes but then that's no surprise, maybe it could make a subject for his contribution to one of the local papers.

Finally it actually does get worse, as I found out on Thursday night when visiting my favour Chip shop in Margate (Petes Fish Factory). Only to discover that some of last few parking spaces in Margate have just been destroyed. In fairness Kent Highways claim responsibility for this "improvement" and will be putting in seating where once you could park, obviously I doubt anyone involve in tinkering with Margate would have noticed that provision is made all along the front for seating on the sea wall.

ALL ROADS LEAD OUT OF KENT

Well that is the impression you might get from the apparently increasing importance given to transport through and then out of Kent.

Kent Highways are currently in a spending frenzy, advertising what they do, and I'm just thinking why was the Thanet way closed this morning delaying me and fellow commuters on our journey to work.

This week you may have received a copy of Around Kent, which you as the Taxpayer, cough up around 6 million pounds a year, along with other ridiculous advertising schemes, now you might expect a publication paid for by local taxpayers to concentrate on matters that are focused on those who live in Kent, but no we are treated to almost two pages of suggestion of how to improve the traffic flow through Kent and then to make sure people don't linger there is a little bit about Kent councils new pet scheme a new multi million pound road crossing into Essex.

Here's my message to Paul Carter, sort out traffic in Kent first, such as Thanet, as far as Kent's role as a Gateway to Europe, that is surely something which should be dealt with by central government.

I cannot tell you what precisely my colleague had to say about the closure of the Thanet way @ 5:30 this morning but I think he did mention something to effect that they could do better and maybe also suggest that those in charge might be involved in what Catholics call self abuse.

Finally on page four of this tosh, the Headline Kent's roads getting better, well they haven't yet, not in these parts, also I refer again to my colleagues sentiments.

Microsoft wasting my time and energy

The thought occurred as my PC slowed to a crawl tonight, that maybe I ought to do what I usually do, when experiencing such problems (after swearing) that is to turn it off.

This I did but as it turned off, it the computer decided to update or upgrade or whatever they do.

The process took roughly 15 minutes before the machine turned itself off, and this is my thought, I reckon that this occurs quite frequently perhaps taking up 1% or maybe more of my time on the computer.

Now of course I have nothing better to do with my time than wait for Microsoft to fiddle about with my operating system, but if you multiply the energy consumed by this process it must waste millions across the world if experienced by every other user.

Still what is priceless is the lost thread of a brilliant idea that I was sure would have been my best ever posting, that has now vacated my head as I got more frustrated. Microsoft you ******* ********!

Perhaps someone could do the calculations, tell us how much globally this costs and maybe put in terms of how many homeless polar bears as a result of global warming, I think we should be told.

Words will not fix Dreamland

I doubt it yesterdays events came as any shock to any of us, the only thing most of us felt was the terrible realisation that what we thought would likely happen did, and now we can look forward to a full enquiry and well you lot can guess the outcome. I think it might be worth considering however that the speed with which this fire spread might well have had something to do the wood preservatives and oil soaking into the timbers for many years.

All that said, it might now be time for our councillors to get tough, and do everything in their power to prevent the scenic railway goinig the way of everything else in this town.

I seem to remember one Sandy Ezekiel (and Roger Gale) talking tough, earlier last year, when there was a suggestion of turning the Nayland Rock into a detention centre for failed asylum seekers.

Now you will get the reply from Thanet councillors that its too expensive, its private land blah blah blah, if that's the case why did Thanet council spend what must have been thousands in preparing a planning brief, similar to one made up by some of the sites owners and then give a lot of spin to the following public consultation, presumably if all the cards are with the developers in this town, why not do us all a favour a get rid of the planning department, which could easily be replaced with one clerk a rubber approval stamp and lots of bloody ink.

Perhaps Sandy Ezekiel could explain the role of the planning department and why we waste money on local plans, when all we get is the council agreeing with developers.

Finally if the interest that has been shown in Dreamland in the last day is anything to go by (750+ views of my video in 24 hours), it puts those claims of some, that is you cannot run a viable theme park here in doubt, . Its not that long ago that two million visited each year.



PS we all know what is being said and thought, out in the locality, but whether we agree or not one thing is for sure, comments made via the internet can be traced to source, and there are those who quite rightly have the means and the resources to protect their reputation for what its worth.

FIRE AT DREAMLAND BURNS DOWN SCENIC RAILWAY

Dreamland Fire (A Last Chance to Wake up)

As you may or may not know, I have often written on the Topic of Margate's Dreamland amusement park, and if you wish some background please click here or on the Label Dreamland at the bottom of this post.

Now I think it would only make matters worse, than they already, if those conversations that I expect you and your family friends or whatever will have had tonight, or even those overheard in Margate this evening, were published, the simple fact is we don't know what caused this tragic event.

This could be a catalyst for those who have listened to the disinformation concerning development Dreamland, to demand a more sypathetic future for the site, the council have promoted an unsupportable housing development, to occur on the site, even to the extent of the council getting involved with drawing up plans sympathetic and similar to those plans suggested by one of the properties owners.

I hope that this terrible act of God does not result in the listed Scenic Railway, being lost forever. Thanet council in my opinion have not taken into consideration the vast majority of local residents who would have liked to have seen the local planning authorities show a little backbone in their dealings and maybe have forced return the site to its historical use.

Things to watch out for in the future, the scenic railway not being rebuilt or being rebuilt and then moved to maximise speculative property development. Also look out for crocodile tears from our coffee swilling, property promoting politicians, who will no doubt mourn the passing of one of our last traditional assets.

Quick postcript Dreamland is more than some object, for rich developers, it happens part of us the public, our history and culture, a quick reaction from Mrs Me, who remembered fondly looking for er young men ( in the amusement park), well sorry to say she end up with a fat fifty year old F-wit, anyhow Thanet's mediocre politicians have done little protect us the public, it makes you wonder what they think the planning departments for?

Labour hypocrisy and the Chinese Circus

I can understand athletes, sports men and women, being over come by the spirit of the Olympics, the ideals of the Olympics etcetera but when the Prime Minister, takes part in what was a PR exercise for the corrupt and abusive Chinese regime, it just underlines how out of touch he and his government are.

China as we all know occupies Tibet and ruthlessly puts down opposition which is at odds with much of Labours own policies (I think), of encouraging the break up of the United Kingdom, and open boarders, so just what the hell is Gordon Brown allowing this Chinese PR Circus into downing Street, even more offensive is the sight of what I take to be Chinese security pushing and shoving participants about outside 10 Downing Street. Click here to see video.
I read somewhere that Gordon Brown had taken on a new advisor to stop stupid gaffs, well it doesn't look like its working. Still one outcome is that news today, that china has killed or is that murdered 8 rioters, will move to the back pages, doubt we will not hear any labour ministers speaking too loudly on that issue.

Finally this torch waving PR is promoted as a journey of Harmony, which clearly its not, one thing we all ought to remind ourselves is that the Olympics sports run for two weeks, the bullshit goes on forever.

Thought for the week

Simon Moores tells us this week (in yourthanet newspaper) that money spent on the Turner Contemporary does not come from us but rather from Kent County Council, South East England Development Agency, and the blooming Arts Council.

Well just where does he think the tax money comes from to pay for these organisations, and also the fat cats who draw big salaries and expenses, that's right us, local taxpayers.

He tells us that money is being given to us and ignores the fact that the Rendezvous site originally owned by Thanet council, was given away by our bungling council of which he is now a member, to Kent Council.

Now we are getting a gallery on a postage stamp sized piece of the site, but on the larger part of the site Kent council has done a deal with a property developer, and when I asked Thanets leading councilor and member of Thanet's cafe society, a few months ago whether we would see any of the profits, I seem to remember his answer was something like no chance.

Perhaps someone could explain why Thanet will not benefit from what was once our property, profits from which will quite likely subsidise those clowns in Maidstone.

Money spent by Kent council is our money, its a pity that local Tories have never had much influence with their richer central and west Kent colleagues, and got our fair share of what is our money.

A prime example of the attitude of Maidstone centric Tories can be seen with local roads, almost weekly Paul Carter and his cronies in Maidstone, witter on about the M20 but have you ever heard any mention about road links toThanet, no of course not.

Thanet Conservatives appear to adopt a servile attitude when representing Thanet interest with their county colleague.

In summary for Simon Moores and his colleagues, its quite simple, money from Kent council and other agencies comes from our taxes, so it might be a good idea if, those who were elected to serve Thanet, got more proactive on our behalf.

Cafe Society hits the streets

The expansion of Margate's much promoted Cafe Society, has finally hit the streets of Margate and is now in the open for all to see. By some incredible luck, it looks as if an otherwise pointless traffic scheme, has produce an unintended benefit to part of Margate's Cafe' culture.


You will have been aware of work taking place at the bottom of Margate High Street in recent weeks, in what appeared to some, to be a pointless exercise, which I think was apparently promoted as some sort of traffic calming measure, how this has made any significant difference is beyond me and I suspect most of the public. Basically what they did was move a bulge in the pavement from one side of the road, to the other, I assume the resulting constriction slows vehicles down as they enter the High Street, but as they only moved it from one side of the road to the other, what was the point.


In fairness they did also constrict the road by extending the pavement slightly going into Lombard Street but I would imagine the effect is of minimal, sorry minuscule, benefit to us who pay for these things. I though I knew what was meant by street furniture (lights bins signs and that sort of thing) but I see someone has laid out tables for the convenience of the public how generous. I just wonder what sort of reaction I would get were I to take a few deckchairs and my own tables, I of course I would probably get asked to sling my hook.


Still if anyone has a logical explanation which is carefully worded I would much appreciate it.


Despite our local authorities having money to burn on such questionable projects, its a pity they cannot promise to adequately fund our local museums.

the old hump in pavement

PS the new drop curb which I assume is meant to assist those in wheel chairs seems to be to shallow

Thought for the day

Joe Grimond, Jeremy Thorpe, David Steel, Paddy Ashdown, Charles Kennedy, and Menzies Campbell all past leaders of the Liberal Party but despite having a life long preference for Liberals I haven't a clue who the current one is, does anyone else?

Bit of a worry although admittedly I don't spend too much time studying politics these days, I do have a passing interest, and this is probably the first time in my life (since about the age of 10) when I couldn't name the leader of the countries third party (without looking it up).

What wont the BBC do? Anything?

As I mentioned yesterday I feel the urge to comment on aspects of life, that are less serious, and the blatant promotional activities for Musicals involving Andrew Lloyd Webber appears to be a prime candidate, you will have noticed the BBC have given over many hours of prime time television, to shows like "Any Dream will do" and "How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria".

So far we have witnessed the prime time search for Maria & Joseph for a couple of West End shows which for some reason the BBC involves us for several weeks with a talent show type format at the taxpayers expense.

Not surprisingly at least one Theatre Director Kevin Spacey has spoken out about this apparent scandal, which it surely must be, the BBC have confirmed that they don't benefit commercially which makes this blatant taxpayer funded promo all the more outrageous.

I must say its not often I'm home at the weekend but the other week when I caught the latest manifestation of these thingies "I'd do anything" (which clearly the BBC appear to be doing for certain West end producers) , I must say the announcement that a, they were on the look out for Nancys and b, the apparition of the charismatic great man himself were enough to convince me I had been working too hard which had in turn induced hallucination requiring immediate medical attention. Thank god its not just me, who thinks this is at best an abuse the BBC.

Well meaning as the BBC might be, this is probably not the first time (anyone remember Disney Time) , that the organisation has been guilty of massive free marketing, it wouldn't be so bad if they had some cut of the action. Still one things for sure I bet those producers of the musicals in question cannot believe their luck.

Anyway to read the full story click here from the Times article.