Monday, March 31, 2008

Same old Same old in Cannes





One of those things which make it difficult to comment on local politics is that some items tend to have a very repetitive nature, so rather than blether on too long, a couple of particular stories which seem to have repeated recently are that representatives of Kent and the southeast went off on some junket to Cannes in the south of France, which was covered in last weeks Kent on Sunday, and salaries paid to local authority wallahs.

The story concerning the Cannes trip, to an exhibition promoting various regional locations, including naturally Kent and the south east to overseas investors seems to lack any real proof of benefit, a similar story as when Kent council spent hundreds of thousands on a pointless exhibition in America, as yet Kent council or Locate in Kent have yet to announce so much as a new McDonald's franchise let alone any multi million investment, still I'm sure all these people aren't travelling just to keep the accounts departments busy dealing with expenses?.

On the question of Local fat cat salaries I covered this one last year click here in a frank interview with my collaborator, just one point Thanet council apparently did not answer the freedom of interest request for salary information, perhaps Richard Samuel (Thanet's top bod) could drop me a line tonyflaig@gmail.com.

For more details (Cannes) click here for Kent on Sunday Site you will have to look at last weeks copy

For more details on er plump cats click here for Kentonline (KM Group)

As your aware, regulars that is, since I have to earn a living to subsidise your reading pleasure, when service is interrupted, please delve back into the archive or use the search facility at the top of the blog.

Sunday, March 30, 2008

BIGNEWS MARGATE UNDER SEDATION




No apologies for the intermission, difficult as it is for me and fellow bloggers to ignore the urge to vent, on just about everything and nothing, I was beginning to think how depressing everything was becoming and samey feeling their must be a better way to spend my time.

There is more to life than bitching, and being passive is one of them. For tranquility and peace of mind not listening or reading the news or reading is a good thing. I don't regret any of the time I've spent on posting to this blog, however doing nothing is relaxing for a while, though I find it a little disconcerting the less I blog the more visits I get. Still sedation may be an exaggeration but for quite a while I have immersed myself in the tranquilising effect of trash TV, when I've not been either too busy, too tired, its been a case of being too bored to burden those sad blighters who read this stuff, with my extreme middle aged angst.

Eventually, enough is enough, and we aren't all happy to just sit wallow on the sofa for ever, particularly when in my case I found myself too weak to turn off "The Jeremy Kyle show" which a member of the Flaig household had been watching. For those of you unfamiliar with this particular practitioner of daytime TV Kyle, specialises in the personal relationships of what yanks call "trailer trash", basically what you seem to get is a fairly strict formula on comes parent/ partner/ sibling/ offspring who explains hurt, out comes perpetrator either belligerent or passive but always pathetic, Kyle then puts the case to the defendant irrespective of their answer, he then starts to moralise, gradually as he climbs to the moral high-ground he becomes more assertive and starts shouting ever louder to compensate for his lofty position and even if his victim appears to have surrendered and pleaded guilty and promises to repent. Before I move on here is an extract from a news item last year "Judge Berg was reported in the Manchester Evening News as saying: "I have had the misfortune, very recently, of watching The Jeremy Kyle Show. "It seems to me that the purpose of this show is to effect a morbid and depressing display of dysfunctional people whose lives are in turmoil."
He added that it was "human bear-baiting which goes under the guise of entertainment".

One other recent passive activities worth commenting on is looking at furniture with Mrs Me, which is another of life's experiences requiring little or no input from me other than to appear interested and concur at the right points but not so much so as to be clearly bogus. I feel that being held hostage by Mrs Me, in excess of three hours, in the Land or World of Leather Sofas or whatever, must surely be in contravention of my Human rights and or Geneva convention particularly, when you factor in the threat of harsher punishment, that being made to look round the adjacent shop at curtains cushions and other soft furnishings. At one point I was so weak, I pretended to be keen a particular suite, despite it being made of leather (I'm a vegetarian as far as furniture's concerned), I even toyed with the idea of paying for damn thing with my own money! just to get out of there, in fact having agreed to one hideous suite with freedom clearly in site, the only thing stopping us from making our escape was the world's most honest salesman, with a comment suggesting our choice was particularly difficult to get through any door smaller than those found attached to Barns or Hangers. After some discussion a compromise choice was made, which once again was thwarted by the same honest salesman who informed us that unlike most of their product, our next choice was half cow, half plastic and no way the full Monty or Quarter pounder. The only plus at this point was that Mrs Me lost the will to go on, and thankfully the shop over the road (soft furnishings) had closed for the day.

As you know this blog has never been about self promotion or an ego trip (What ! ?) unlike some of those prima blogerinas in Thanet but since writing about local politics and ever incompetent local bureaucrats I might move on to more trivial matters. Hopefully I will be renewing my interest in local matters, although its getting more difficult particularly when you think things couldn't get worse in Margate and a week later realising they can with more shop & pub closures. There are worse things than sitting in front of a keyboard ranting.

Saturday, March 15, 2008

Democracy restored

I'm probably the last person to spot this but I see Eastcliff Richard is back contributing his thoughts opinion's and snippets of what passes for news in the south of the Island.


Also I note elsewhere that another, is contributing to local debate through yourthanet blogger column.

Mr ECR will hopefully be pleased that I have reinstated a link from this website.

Hopefully a man of Eastcliffs caliber will raise the standards of blogging once again, you will note that here on Bignews Margate things have been allowed to slip quite badly without proper competition, you will have no doubt spotted, that all my recent post have been made using a mobile phone rather that a proper computer logged in the Internet thingy.

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Labour surrender democracy

Much as I detest the idea of having a monarch as head of state, Im
willing to concede that its probably better than having a president.

Whats bugging me is the thought of our children being asked swear an
oath of alligence to the queen , why not an oath expresing loyalty to
democracy and the British people that way everyones included.

To my mind there is nothing worse than the sight of labour toadying to
the establishment , still if we had a president you could end up with
someone like Blair(thankfully his busy cashing in ).

On balance God save the Queen

--
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Monday, March 10, 2008

Invitation for steve

As you may have noticed or more likely not, in my last reference to
the state of local blogs i let rip at some anon guy called steve who
suggested my blog was less than brilliant .

Well if i had a gauntlet id throw it since i use rubber coated gloves i
will make this more simplistic and less dramatic suggestion send a few
words which dont involve attacking local bloggers being offensive
and i will post it on this site.

Email include your contact details and something entertaining .

PS the only chance i get to blog at moment is squashed in back of a
small van to and from work

--
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Sunday, March 09, 2008

Not responsible

On page 20 of todays kent on sunday, alex king kents deputy tory
leader accuses the tax payers alliance of "attacking authorities for
something they are not responsible for "

Seems here in kent were each paying out 52 quid to pay for pensions
which i suppose includes those fat cats on a hundred grand, still if
alex King is willing to admit that the authoritys are not responsible,
then im willing to agree.

Perhaps the tories could put that on their next manifesto were not responsible .

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Saturday, March 08, 2008

Blogging Controversy rumbles on

It is a subject which i thought would have passed over by now , that
is Simon Moores recent decision to stop his blog.

But as you can read it still rumbles on in the blogosphere which is a
pity since local debate now seems to have polarized around thanets
self righteous .

I dont doubt Simon has been the victim of old fashioned play ground bullying.

My advice would be to just ignore the irrational abuse eventually they
will find some thing else to chew on.

I just wonder why those involved dont move on

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Friday, March 07, 2008

Too much too young

As ever these pages are a personal take on the great issues of the
day, and if one is to beleive the tory party, booze is todays big
issue.

Still its not any old alcohol, its alcoho -pops, whatever that may be,
thats upsetting conservatives.

Now i can understand the concerns some might have re teenagers,
drinking but i reckon most of us drank more than was good for us as
teenagers.

Trust the tories to make low income drinkers suffer by upping the
price on alco pops .

I noticed a couple of local tory councilors in the local media
objecting to some shop getting a booze licence, frankly i feel there
are bigger fish to fry like above inflation increases in the council
tax.

At the age of 15 i used drink barley wine for around 15P a bottle or
maybe rum or whisky if availabie, i dont think it ever did me any
harm.

The thing is drunk or sober noxious kids are noxious kids.

--
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Wednesday, March 05, 2008

Promoting what?


I make no apology for not posting recently, the fact is that I don't have the time and when I do, I've nothing to say, which thank god is not the case for some of the leading lights in our county administration. Paul Carter's (KCC Leader) Blog continues in the riveting style that it started, and joy of joys Peter Gilroy of KCC (the countries most highly paid local authority chief) contributed an article to the Kent on Sunday newspaper this week, proving why he's worth a quarter mill a year roughly to the Kent tax payer (probably more this year).

Those who had inclination and stamina to plough through this will have been enthralled to learn that Peter was invited to speak at the World Health Care Congress and later at the WHCC's leadership programme (whatever that is). Later on the great man goes on to inform us how the world is changing fast etc. and I would certainly agree, although I find I have, a differing view of some of his conclusions, particularly reference to Kent TV which apparently comes in the duty to communicate.

One thing which is of no shock value is no mention is made of the vast sums in Kents humongous media budget which for Kent TV will be well in excess of a million pounds during the next two years, and advertising a whooping 6.5 million a year.

As I say I don't get much time to blog at the moment but I'd love to know, if when Mr Gilroy goes off to speak, at one of these meetings, such as the WHCC does he have to book time off or is it coming out of my soon to be inflated Council Tax bill. Anyway this might be something, one of our local newpapers could investigate simply by phrasing the right sort of question under the freedom of information act.

Link to Kent on Sunday site where you can find an electronic copy of sundays paper see Page 30