Thanet Life

Wild Wild Thanet

A little distracted today. On the one hand, Silicon.com are running my thoughts on government's plans for a national ID card and then, with some irony, I've been asked to block my diary in June to meet with members of the Jordanian government in Amman, to discuss their own plans for electronic government and the internet, which also embraces the subject of citizen ID cards. Trapped then between a rock and a hard place, I decided that the best course of action, was to avoid thinking about either today, enjoy the sunshine and take Charlotte over to Wildwood in Herne Bay instead.



Anybody know what the animal asleep in the picture is? Apparently an Arctic Fox, one of the many rare creatures you'll find at Wildwood. Worth a visit, day or even at night, when the badgers are out. One thing I discovered today, is that if an ambulance passes down the road between Herne Bay and Canterbury with its siren going, then this sets off the wolves howling as well. I would never have thought it!

Thanet Life

Another Thanet Photo Site

I stumbled across this photo album site today which has a number of interesting photos of Ramsgate, many of which are in Black and White.

I've created a small collection of "Thanet" photos from the library as a slideshow but feel free to send me yours to add to the collection

A Prize Every Time
Originally uploaded by DrMoores.

Thanet Jedi News

For any potential Jedi Masters, of which there seem to be many in Thanet at present, try your skills with a selection of light sabres on this website:

New Baywatch

Kent police will be patrolling the bays this summer looking for signs of anti-social behaviour, which will include, loud music, alcohol consumption, vandalism and speedboats and jetskis making a nuisance of themselves in the popular beaches around Thanet.

Quite how the police will be able to catch a jetski, isn't quite clear yet but perhaps the old wooden pedalboats, that I worked on one season as a teenager, will be bought out of retirement?



Anyway, any police presence along our seafront, as a deterrence against anti-social behaviour, is better than none at all.

Thanet Life

BBC Radio Kent Interview on the New Dreamland Rides

BBC Radio Kent's Morning Show host, Steve Ladner, interviews Thanet Life's Children's Editor, Charlotte, about the re-opened Dreamland amusement park in Margate and its new rides.


MP3 File

A Turner Sunset

Thanet at its best on a Bank Holiday Sunday evening at St Mildred's Bay, Westgate. A grey and overcast day is crowned by a breathtaking sunset of the kind that made this stretch of coastline famous in JMW Turner's paintings of the 19th century.

Thanks to the Red Arrows who gave Charlotte a small display on request this afternoon.


Co-pilot
Originally uploaded by DrMoores.

We were coming back towards Manston, when I heard them returning on the same frequency, clearing the skies ahead of them as they hurtled at low level down the Thames Estuary towards Thanet.

"I've got a ten year old fan in my right hand seat", I told them and the Manston controller, "Do you mind if I position over the lakes and watch you come in?"



"Alright", said 'Red One', stay eight miles clear to the south and we'll do a fly-by", and they did, along the Manston runway and then up vertically, breaking in a starburst in front of us.

Lucky Charlotte says "Thank you!"

PS.. Don't forget that the Red Arrows will be among the aircraft displaying at next month's Thanet Airshow.

First Photos of New Dreamland Rides
Tested by our Children's Editor

Dreamland Margate opened this evening for the first time in two years* and our children's editor Charlotte was there to test the new rides, many of which are bigger and scarier than ever before, to add to the old favourites, such as Dreamland's famous roller-coaster, the "Scenic Railway."


Test pilot Charlotte

The two biggest rides are G-Force and Megadrop and showing considerable courage, Charlotte, aged 10, was among the first to test "fly" the latter, which has a seat hauled-up parallel with the top of the Arlington tower and then released into free-fall, seconds later.


Waiting for the drop

Entry to Dreamland is by buying tokens at the gate and each ride costs anywhere between 2 and 4 tokens depending on how exotic it is. Best value is buying £20 worth of tokens which should see you around the major rides.

* Dreamland did open briefly as a funfair for a period last summer but with limited rides.

You can find a photo library and slideshow of all the new rides here.

Bay Watch

It's thirty years since I was a Thanet Lifeguard and I notice that there's nobody on duty on my bay, this weekend.

This afternoon, I was seconds away from making a decision over an unscheduled swim, as I watched a middle-aged man attempt to recover a football being blown out to sea in a wind that's gusting up to 40 knots.



I happened to be taking photos, as usual, when I caught him swimming after the ball, towards an area of water, on the incoming tide that can be best described as a washing machine. Fearing the worst, I started snapping photos at the extreme range of my telephoto lens as I walked quickly towards the spot.

The moment he swam across the breakwater into deep water, the waves started smashing him across the concrete and he started to struggle. Fortunately, he managed to pull himself along the breakwater, towards the promenade and an emergency ladder that was conveniently positioned for just such an occasion, finally emerging a little worse for wear and perhaps realising how lucky he was.



An offshore wind like today's is a particular problem in the summer, with so many children and adults now having inflatable rings, waterbeds, crocodiles and more, it's a water-safety nightmare at the best of times and without a Lifeguard on duty there's even more risk.

In the summer of 1975 I went into the same sea to rescue a twelve year old girl who had been spotted, face down in the water, in the unpatrolled area of the waterfront, North of the St Mildred's boating pool, on a rising tide. I found her but was too late to save her.

Dreamland Opening

I've just dropped-in to the Dreamland amusement park in Margate and it's unlikely to be opening before late afternoon or early evening today, I'm told by Harry Ayers, the concessionaire.

Once it opens, I'll take photos of the new rides and place them up in a photo library for readers to view.


Margate's Dreamland, May 2005

Swimming Alert as More Beaches Fail Water Test

The Guardian reports those heading to the coast for the bank holiday weekend might like to think twice before taking advantage of rising temperatures by having a dip in the sea.

The quality of the water at British beaches has declined for the first time in eight years, according to the Marine Conservation Society.


The Isle of Thanet

The society revealed yesterday that 52 of the 800 beaches tested for its 2005 Good Beach Guide failed to meet the European commission mandatory standard for water quality. Last year only 26 beaches failed to make the grade

On the Marine Conservation website, Margate, Broadstairs and Ramsgate fail to receive a yellow recommendation flag but Reculver, Westbrook, Westgate and Minnis Bay are given high water quality awards.

Beaches which were failed by the guide this year ranged from Church Beach in Lyme Regis, Dorset, to Hele Beach in Ilfracombe, Devon; Haverigg in Cumbria and Viking Bay in Kent.

The BBC reports Viking Bay was the only beach in south east England to fail and Thanet District Council says it had been working with the Environment Agency and Southern Water since August to solve the problem. Council investigations will continue this summer, including a tidal survey in August with samples checked every half hour.

Thanet's 26-mile coastline scooped nine Seaside Awards last month.

Thanet Life

The Oracle

A small boy consulting the famous St Mildred's oracle for clues about his future, the truth about Father Christmas and the likelihood of a very warm bank holiday weekend.



Apparently, Tesco has sold-out of BBQ sets and there is good reason to expect Thanet to go up in charcoal-scented flames this weekend, early preparation having already started outside many of the beach huts along the seafront.

Have I Got News for You

The main headlines this week from around Thanet.

Stop press.. Thanet becomes centre of African international fish trade! Fish to claim asylum.


MP3 File

Even More Photos

A whole new collection of aerial photos, taking in the Thanet coastline from Palm Bay to Herne Bay has just been added to the library. If you happen to live anywhere between the two, along the seafront, then you might just see your house.

Visit the aerial photo section here to view and download the photos.

Tongue Sands

If you ever wondered what the Tongue Sands north of Margate looked like at low tide, then here's a photo of one of the sandbanks with its distinct red colour. There used to be a lightship anchored there many years ago.


Tongue Sands

The sandbanks stretch west towards Reculver and the one below, where you'll find the sleeping seals today, is just in-front of Minnis Bay, Birchington. In fact, if you download a better resolution photo from the library, you can just make out a family of seals on the sands. The higher resolution image I took yesterday allows you to count them individually.

Slow Down

Kent police have been busy all morning with a traffic operation on the A299 towards the St Nicholas roundabout. There are brand new police motorcycles tucked in behind the exit before the roundabout and two policeman by the side of the road tracking incoming cars, with "captured" vehicles being pulled off into the layby hidden behind the roundabout.

What's unusual today is that coming and going this morning, I noticed that the police officer on "point" is not wearing his high visibility jacket and has it tucked behind him. I have asked for a comment from the Press Office at Kent Police but they appear reluctant to answer the very direct question as to whether the traffic officer is breaching regulations by not wearing his regulation jacket on road traffic duty and within a metre of a dual carriageway.

"After all", I said to the PR girl "they are supposed to play fair."

Thanet Life has just breezed by its 15,000 visit. That's an extra 5,000 in just under the month. Its growing nicely but we do need more contributions because when I'm away, it stops. Does anyone want to volunteer as a deputy editor?

Ed: Dougal Bell of Thanet Police tells me: "An officer is not required by law to wear his high visibility jacket if he is not on the highway but it is a discretionary Health & Safety issue in an operational role. It would have been adverse to the operation for the officer to have been wearing his jacket in the circumstances."

Thanet Life

Above the Below

I've been busy this morning taking photos of Thanet and the sands offshore. New photos in the collection of almost a hundred, include Margate's Dreamland, waiting to open this weekend, The Sea Bathing Hospital area, Westgate, Margate, North Foreland and Cliftonville and some very large seals dozing on the sandbank offshore.

You can find the photo library here to view or download.


Dreamland Roller Coaster

A Bohemian Rhapsody

We used to call it a “sanity check”, you take a business idea to a group of colleagues and then they pull it apart, looking for weaknesses in the proposition.

Tonight, I listened to Sam Thomas, Thanet District Council’s “Regeneration Officer” at a CIBAS event, “Inspired Thanet”, at the Media Centre in King Street, Margate and wondered at the size of the gap that sometimes occupies the space between imagination and reality.


Sam Thomas

Jan Dunn of Spotty Dog Films sees Thanet as a location of limitless possibilities, a Bohemian quarter of enormous potential, with cheap properties of the kind that attract artists but back to Sam who views the Turner Centre in much the same light as Tony Blair waxed lyrical over the Millennium Dome, pointing enthusiastically at the artist’s impression of a seaside vista to match Cannes at its finest. As for the Arlington tower, well, if you cover it in smoked glass, he quipped, perhaps nobody will notice or perhaps a little sculpting could deliver a Burj Al Arab effect that mimics the best of Dubai?


TDC Artist's Impression of the New Arlington Tower

Of course we need regeneration and the efforts of the arts community who assembled at the Media Centre tonight but I don’t quite see how the miracle of The Turner Centre will bootstrap Thanet as the new Brighton unless we start by telling eighty other local councils to stop dumping their Social Services problems on our doorstep and to give us their artists instead. But then, would the introduction of a thousand Tracey Emins’ make Thanet a better, more cultured and more prosperous place in which to live?

Here to There - With Luck

Worrying about identity cards and more, I had to go to London today, an invitation to lunch with three MPs, one ex-MP, Richard Allan, and the legendary Guy "Bud" Tribble, Apple Computer's Vice President of Software Technology. Forget driving I thought, "Let the train take the strain" and I did, as far as Sittingbourne, that is, where it broke down.

I wouldn't complain but this has happened three times to me in the past twelve months, thanks to the the new rolling stock which doesn't much like snow, leaves, stations and of course, passengers or "customers", as South East Trains calls us. Airads' Captain Bob, tells me that one of his mates was marooned at Faversham for two hours yesterday, same problem, the doors on the train were stuck.

The irony is that one of the MP's who joined us for lunch - I finally arrived in London but late - is Derek Wyatt the MP for Sittingbourne and he's been making a fuss about the quality of the trains and the train service that serves his constituency,which lies between us and London.

From my own point of view, this 1 in 3 chance of finding a train to London that actually gets there on time and as advertised and without breaking down has moved beyond a joke. How on earth can we encourage businesses, like my own, to operate from Thanet, if public transport is delivered at third-world levels?

Thanet Life

Laws of Libel

I've just taken-down one of our comment threads which has potentially libelous content and in my view, breaks the simple rules I have asked contributors to follow.

Having fought and won two libel actions in the past, I'm conscious, that if any person wishes to make allegations against another, then such content should be capable of scrutiny in a court of law and that this website should not be used as a vehicle for hearsay.

Thank you Ed.

Thanet Life

Dunkirk Anniversary on Thursday
Fleet of little ships top leave from Ramsgate

Barrie Smith reminds us that tomorrow morning, an armada of small boats will leave Ramsgate for Dunkirk for the 60th anniversary of the evacuation of the wartime evacuation, a spectacle worth seeing.


Safely home for some

The Battle of Dunkirk (in French: Dunkerque, and in Britain normally referred to simply as Dunkirk) was a major battle during World War II which lasted from around May 26 to June 4, 1940. A large force of British and French was cut off in north-east France by a German armoured advance to the Channel coast at Calais. Over 330,000 Allied troops were evacuated by sea.


French soldiers arriving at Margate station

Angel-1
Originally uploaded by DrMoores.

Angel, the Doolittle's Hamster, has been having a modelling session.

Unusual for a Hamster, Angel, has a habit of hanging upside-down from the bars of her cage, like a bat, grasping a chocolate button in her paws, which is quite possibly how they evolved in the first place but without the chocolate!

One piece of local news, I notice that English Heritage will be running a "Roman" experience for children at Richborough over the Bank Holiday weekend, entrance is £3.00.

If you know of any other activities taking place, there must be many, let me know.

Gale`s View

North Thanet Conservative MP, Roger Gale's Regular Column

"Respect" is the buzzword that was generated by comment upon the Queen`s Speech. "We want,” said the Prime Minister "a society with the rules, order and proper respect due to each other as equal citizens".



We can all, I am sure, agree with the sentiment but respect, Prime Minister, is not something that can be demanded or legislated for. Respect has to be earned......and can be squandered.

If the man or woman at the top cannot be trusted then the institutions over which, effectively, he or she presides are diminished. That applies to politicians as it applies to policemen or doctors or teachers or lawyers or any of those charged with a duty of professional care, public office and responsibility or confidentiality.

I met, at the weekend, with two astute and committed representatives of a local youth council. We discussed, amongst many other matters, attitudes to the dress, demeanour and behaviour of those in public life and service and in close contact with young people. I had expected that my own views might be regarded as Out of the Ark if not Off The Wall and was pleasantly surprised to discover that my young friends were no more impressed, as today`s teenagers, by dressing down and dumbing down in the interests of trying to appear "trendy" than I had been myself at the same age.

In tandem with "respect" rides "modernisation". I have asked many Members of Parliament and several journalists what they mean by "modernisation" and apart from, in the minds of some, not wearing a jacket and tie (!) it is clear that "modernisation" means whatever you want it to mean so long as it does not owe too much to what used to be described as "traditional values".

But wanting "a modern society", to use the Prime Minister`s words, does not have to involve lowering aspirations and standards to the lowest common soap opera or "celebrity" challenge script.

"Respect" and "modernisation" should mean a recognition of the hopes and fears and ambitions and responsibilities and rights not just of those at the more fortunate and affluent end of the social pile but of every citizen in the land. That recognition is not the monopoly of any one politician or any one political party. There are many on both sides of the House who have taken their seats in Parliament for the first time this month who are wholly committed to the cause for entirely the right reasons. It would be a good thing if those at the Government despatch box were now to lead by example.

On 15th March I wrote to the Home Office to ask why £14.8 million owed to Kent in payment for the provision of support to asylum seekers had not been paid. This was followed by parliamentary questions and the threat of legal action by Sir Sandy Bruce-Lockhart on behalf of the council taxpayers of Kent. This week the Minister has replied to say that "the Home Office has paid the Council £7.1 million and is in the process of making a further payment of £3.24 million". Why "in the process" and when will the debt be paid in full?

Thanet Life

Picture Postcard

Short on news today, beyond noticing that the entrance to Westgate library is surrounded by a dense jungle of grass and weeds which might conceal a lost tribe of South American indians.

Apparently, I've broken the Thanet Tourism website. Try this link.

Clever eh?

According to an email from the Tourism webmaster in reply to a letter from reader Barrie Smith: "Having had a look at your comments I noticed a very curious feature of browsing no matter what the platform or browser. I had a look at the page - on Thanet Life - where you found the link and noticed that on their absolute reference to the Thanet Tourism website, they have appended an additional "/" to the end of an explicit reference to a page (not just a domain or directory). When this is applied to any URL it produces the same result of broken links and images. Please use the following as a link to the Thanet Tourism website for a better browsing experience."

Which all means I've broken their website!


Picture postcard view of Margate

A tennis coaching scheme appears to have begun, in the afternoons and evenings at the tennis courts in Westgate. Local children and teenagers need more activities like this over the summer months and in countries like France and Sweden, there's a great deal more effort and of course budget placed behind keeping them busy with sporting activities.

Ironically, I first made my living from tennis a very long time ago but while its a great sport, it uses alot of space and I'd really encourage the council to think about putting-up basketball hoops in the public tennis courts for use by the local children when the courts are closed for business. Another idea would be to allow the courts to be turned into proper five-a-side space in the winter Westgate are already used this way, so why not encourage it?

Gone Crabbing

A quick crab census at St Mildred's Bay suggests that only one in ten of the creatures is alive and the green-backed crabs are virtually extinct. Very few live adult crabs for the time of year and whatever virus or toxin killed thousands two months ago, has wreaked havoc with the local ecology.



Still. There are some survivors and the children are having to work harder to find any of real size.



In the photo below, you can see a quick dance of victory from three local boys, as a crab is spotted in a rock pool.

A View from Above



What's happening in the air over Thanet and a quick weather forecast. Still testing the webcast technology, a pilot's pilot, so to speak!

Margate Sands 1
Originally uploaded by DrMoores.

Thanet Life has an RSS newsfeed or more accurately, it uses ATOM, the Blogger/Google standard.

If you have RSS news reading software such as Newz Crawler, then paste "http://birchington.blogspot.com/atom.xml" into the feed address and new columns and comments will be delivered to your PC automatically. In fact, I'm using Newz Crawler to read all the available Sunday papers at once and for free this morning.

If you want the photo feed, this is "http://www.flickr.com/services/feeds/photos_public.gne?id=10233720@N00&format=atom_03"

Joshua J -11 May 2
Originally uploaded by DrMoores.

Football fever grips Thanet on FA Cup Final afternoon but nobody has explained the handball rule to young Joshua!

Getting ready for the first experimental broadcast of Thanet Life's digital TV channel. It can only get better and promises an improvement on local weather webcams.


Also.....

What the Thanet local paper is writing about on Friday 20th May


MP3 File

Volunteering for the Rum Ration
Originally uploaded by DrMoores.

Chartfield School's outing to the Grand Turk sailing ship anchored in Ramsgate harbour.

More photos and a slideshow on the website.

Local Newsflash

Harry Ayers the man behind the re-opening of Dreamland tells us that the amusement park will NOT open this weekend as planned. Delays in setting-up the amusements mean that Dreamland will only open Thursday of next week at the earliest but "Definitely" Friday, in time for the Bank Holiday weekend.

EUjet have just announced suspension of their flights to Budapest until further notice. Apparently, the Hungarian capitol's airport has raised its charges by three hundred percent, enough to make it unviable, as a destination for low cost airlines.

Stuart McGoldrick, EUjet’s Group Commercial Director, said: “The cancelling of Budapest is a disappointment, but the massive increase in airport charges has made it no longer a commercially viable route. We understand other airlines are pulling out of the Hungarian capital too."



A potentially damaging move for the Hungarian tourist industry I would have thought at a busy time of year.

EUjet has also chosen temporarily to change the frequency of flights to a number of domestic routes during the summer in line with customer demand. The number of flights to Edinburgh will be reduced from 12 to 11 per week and to Newcastle and Belfast from six to three.

Stuart McGoldrick continued: “Over the past two months our bookings and passengers carried have consistently increased, in particular to our Spanish destinations, Dublin, Edinburgh and Prague, and we are confident that this will continue.

“One example of the growing demand for the EUjet service from Kent International Airport is that all our flights during the forthcoming Whitsun Bank Holiday weekend are full.”

Since EUjet began flights from Kent International Airport on 1 September, 2004, the airline has already taken over 360,000 passenger bookings and currently more than 90% of its flights arrive in on time – better than any other UK airline – and 76% of all flights are early.

The EUjet Customer Services team will be contacting all passengers affected by the suspension of the Budapest route and other changes to arrange alternative itineraries, routes or refunds. In the meantime passengers can visit www.EUjet.com or call 0870 414 1414 for further information.

Thanet Life

Westgate on Sea Station Update
South Eastern Trains response to "Clean-up" call

The Managing Director of South East Trains, Michael Holden, has this week responded to a call from the village`s MP, Roger Gale and local Councillor Brian Goodwin to take steps to clean up the station and to make it safe.

Following complaints from local resident Geoffrey Shaw Case and a site visit the MP wrote to Network Rail and South Eastern on 27th April saying:

"I am appalled to see how very seriously and dangerously this station has deteriorated since I last visited not so very many months ago".

The MP and Cllr. Goodwin drew attention to poor CCTV coverage and broken platform lighting, and a lack of manning and referred to a use of part of the downside platform as "a shanty youth club with a broken sofa, armchair and other paraphernalia obviously used by those who at night vandalise the station".

In reply this week Michael Holden, accepting responsibility for the problems, says:

" We have been putting a great deal of time and effort into station presentation over the past 12 months and I am disappointed that Westgate on Sea station was in such poor condition on your visit. I have instructed the station Manager to attend to the repair issues and the removal of dumped items of furniture. I have also asked our Head of Security to check that the CCTV does cover all areas of the station and to liase with British Transport Police and TDC`s community warden for the area regarding the station`s use as an after-hours hang-out by local youths"

"I am pleased that South Eastern are responding swiftly to this situation" says Roger Gale " and that they are meeting with Thanet`s community safety officers and area manager to draw up an action plan. Westgate Station ought to be a credit to the village and an asset: at present it is a potentially dangerous eyesore"

Thanet Life

Snow Scene

With summer struggling to make an appearance, here's a nice and rather chilly photo of a Margate snow scene submitted by Philip Page.

The Weald's Favourite Airline

It came as a surprise. Walking onto the apron at Manston with the other passengers for EUjet’s flight to Dublin, we walked past the two Fokker 100 jets and on towards the squat-looking Airlinair ATR 42-500 turbo-prop aircraft that I had previously wondered about, tucked-away in the corner.


Photo of the ATR taken at Dublin - Not Manston.

Can I take a photo I asked our escort? “No” she replied, “Security”, and I nodded knowingly, EUjet having confiscated my blunt nail scissors half an hour before.

Where the BAA have now re-allowed blunt nail scissors to be carried on passenger flights, EUjet, which has it’s aircraft under an Irish registration, is still bound by Irish regulations, so no scissors or anything vaguely metallic or pointed that may pose a security risk to the aircraft or its crew.

I recently interviewed Stuart McGoldrick for Airliner World and Thanet Life and knowing a number of people, management and crew at the airline, I have been asking EUjet if it might be possible to fly the right seat of one of their Fokker 100’s for Pilot Magazine review of the aircraft. - not on a passenger flight of course - and they’re looking into it but the ATR was an extra unexpected bonus, as I was thinking of approaching Air Atlantique for ride in theirs.

Comfortably settled down in my seat at the front of the aircraft, I asked the two flight attendants if I might take their photos for ThanetLife. One, Aofe Larkin, is Irish and her colleague, Elodie Tatara is French. Airlinair is an Air France company and apparently, the ATR is leased-out to EUjet for a week while they take a view on using such aircraft for short-haul flights. With a cruising speed of 260 to 300 knots, it’s not much slower than a Fokker 100 which can do the Dublin run in sixty minutes as opposed to ninety and can take-off and land on a billiard table.

Having introduced myself to the girls and my loose connection with the airline and aviation, - I've done aviation news reports for both Sky and CNN - Elodie asked if I would like to meet the rest of the crew and called the Captain for his permission. Once the aircraft was settled en-route, I was escorted forward to meet Francois Roubes, the ATR’s Captain and his First Officer, Claudio Dumay.

Francois, who was a helicopter pilot in the French navy has been a Captain on the ATR for five years, while Claudio, who was a flight engineer, has two years on type. Both are based at Orly, outside Paris.


ATR First Officer Claudio Dumay

We arrived in Dublin “on the dot” and as passengers Chris and Nicky Ewings commented on the way in to passport control, “We’ve had about sixteen flights with EUjet now and have never had any problems, they’re really excellent.”

I then got on with my real job, meeting Irish Trade Minister Michael Ahern TD and others at a conference on the Irish economy, I was addressing at the Croke Park Stadium before making my way back through the traffic to the airport again this afternoon.


Israel's Sol Gradman, Minister Ahern TD and Simon Moores

With some heavy weather and a strong headwind over the Irish Sea, EUjet UNI04W back to London, was twenty-five minutes late and it was ten minutes before seven before we were all on board ready for the flight home. This time, and about a quarter of an hour into the flight, I was invited to meet Captain Chris Kalisvaart, a Dutchman with over six thousand hours on the Fokker 100, who has been flying them since 1993 when he worked in Indonesia. His First Officer is Lee Salway, enjoying his first job flying jets. Lee built-up his own flying experience dropping parachutists before being accepted as an airline pilot, finally finding his way to Manston and a right seat on the EUjet fleet, where he tells me he’s enjoying life immensely. This was the aircraft’s second trip to Dublin of the day.


Lee Salway

We arrived at Manston only two minutes late, thanks to a strong tailwind. As a both passenger and a pilot, I can’t fault the EUjet experience of the last two days. The aircraft that gave them so much trouble earlier on in the year, with the undercarriage emergency, has now gone and with it, the many delays and technical problems that went with it. Every new business has its problems and if you watch the Airline series on TV, you’ll know how challenging a business this can be. However, what really marks out the EUjet experience from a local perspective, is how committed the people are to making our local airline a success and how much they want to show our local and frequently cynical, community what a good service they can offer.

You can see a collection of EUjet aircraft and crew photos here.

Thanet Life

Sitting here waiting for aisle 9 to open at Dublin airport so I can catch the 18:30 EUjet flight back to Manston.

Pictured, flight attendants, Aofe Larkin and her colleague, Elodie Tatara from yesterday's flight out which left and arrived exactly on time.



The flight had more surprises as I found myself chatting with the crew on the way to Dublin, which I'll write about in the two hours left before the flight opens. Perhaps with luck I will get to ride the ATR 42 the same way back again to Manston.


Nick Carter & Karmen Debauche

PS.. you can see a collection of EUjet aircraft and crew photos here. If EUjet crew want to send me their interesting destination "snaps", I'm quite happy to host them as a collection here, so you can share them.

Dreamland Countdown

I've just been to the Dreamland site in Margate to see the new amusement park owner, Harry Ayers. They're all busy down there working towards achieving the coming weekend's planned opening date and Harry has promised us a full progress update on Friday, as well as giving permission for a complete photo montage of all the new rides that we'll put up here as a slideshow on Thanet Life.

Thanet Life

The Bells of Westgate

"Hark, I hear the bells of Westgate,
I will tell you what they sigh,
Where those minarets and steeples
Prick the open Thanet sky."



Audio file of John Betjeman's poem, "The Bells of Westgate", written circa 1930.


MP3 File

It is probable that the future Poet Laureate, John Betjeman took a certain degree of poetic licence when writing his poem ‘Westgate on Sea’. At the time he visited the place, probably while staying at nearby Birchington, the church of St Saviour ( the only Anglican church in Westgate ), a prime example of the Victorian architecture which Betjeman so unfashionably advocated, only had one bell, and a rather high-pitched one at that. Furthermore, Westgate was still a Parish Council in the early 1930s when the poem was written. It has been suggested that ‘the bells of Westgate’ may have been augmented in the poet’s imagination by the bells of the many schools in existence there in those days, whose pupils appear in the poem. Notwithstanding, the poem charmingly evokes the orderly, genteel resort of the 1930s , with its balconied housefronts.

"Striving chains of ordered children
Purple by the sea-breeze made,
Striving on to prunes and suet
Past the shops on the Parade."

It's changed a little since 1930 but the covered shopfronts remain. when I was a boy, in the 60's, it was full of prep schools and now, the spaces where they stood and the playing fields where I once played cricket are crammed with houses.

if you want to find out how well the local schools rank in the OFSTED report, visit the BBC site which publishes all the figures. The complete Kent school primary listings are HERE.

Complete poems of John Betjeman.

Thanet Life

Don't Look Down

This is one view at the westerly end of the Manston runway. I hadn't realised that the chalk quarry on the roundabout had become such a "Des Res." What happens if it rains hard I wonder?



Several of our local quarries have a rich history associated with them and here's a link to more information if you would like to find out more.

There was also an underground brigade HQ located in a disused quarry at Sarre which you probably see on the way to Canterbury, which was subordinate to the Battle HQ at Canterbury. The area was fortified by Canadians who would help form the defence force if needed to reinforce South East Command forces if there was an invasion in 1940.

An Interview with Richard Samuel Part III

The third part of an interview with Richard Samuel, Chief Executive of Thanet District Council. Richard discusses the replacement of the Clock Tower traffic lights with a new roundabout and the issues surrounding traffic congestion at Westwood Cross.

"It has", Says Richard Samuel, "been a longstanding aspiration to construct a major new road through the EuroKent Business Park and the intention has always been to close the Haine Road, which is really unsuitable which is when the traffic can start to build up. When the Council approved us on price, it secured half a million pounds in traffic improvements around Westwood, but of course what these type of things do not do, they do not deliver what other things a lot of people think they should dual carriageways and things like that, that is going to be appropriate for that location. There has been a significant increase in the amount of investment for traffic improvements round there, just from the half million that has been provided by the Development Team to improve the traffic flow."

"I think " continues Richard Samuel, "we are the victim as all local authorities are where infrastructure investment does not get funded through Government sources in advance of private sector development. The planning system here requires developers to contribute to the impact of their development, but it does not answer the sort of key questions. So if you had a big development in the town centre, you do not get your town centre revamped and improved on the back of that necessarily. So, really it is a plan-led system here of the developer-contribution system, doesn’t really provide the infrastructure that I think people expect to be provided."

Thanks to www.morningpapers.com for the transcription service.


MP3 File

The audio quality of the complete interview is grainy but I've now bought an MP3 recorder for future interviews.

Over a hundred local authorities have visited the website today as a result of the eGov monitor story that ran yesterday. One reader writes:

" Thank you for showing what the web can do for local democracy."

Stand and Deliver

The BBC news is reporting this morning that a man has claimed that he had his car "hijacked" on the A299 outside Herne Bay in the early hours of Monday morning by two armed men, dressed as policeman in a car with a blue flashing light!

There may be rather more to this story than meets the eye and it does seem a great deal of trouble to go to and a huge amount of potential jail time, to steal one car.

In the Queen's speech today, the Government will be introducing new legislation to address the "respect deficit" in our society, starting with a universal ban on teenagers in town centres if some MPs have their way.


Manston in May

Podcasting For Beginners.


MP3 File

Here's a link to a BBC site which explains RSS (Really Simple Syndication). In a nutshell, it's a way of speed-reading Web sites, such as the BBC News and there's an RSS feed built into Thanet Life.

With a free RSS newsreader you can, very simply, create your own newspaper, which in my own case, picks-up, the BBC, The Guardian, Wired Magazine, Thanet Life and the headline of a hundred other titles latest, quite automatically. As a result, newspapers are a thing of the past unless I really want to buy one to read on the train. Add in a Podcast feature as mentioned in the last post and you can take many of your favourite news and radio programmes and listen to them "offline" with your iPOD or MP3 player if you have one or on your PC's Windows Media Player or MAC equivalent.

It's certainly worth looking at and saves you having to visit a Website like this one to see if there have been any updates. Instead, they come to your PC directly.

An Audio Weblog, "Podcast" message to Thanet Life readers. Staying at the "Bleeding" edge of internet publishing technology. More content coming soon. I recommend a visit to iPodder to download the software that will let you capture this and other "Pod Content", now even from the BBC to your own iPOD, Media Player or PC quite automatically. It's free!


MP3 File

You can also find the longer , eGov monitor version of the interview with Richard Samuel HERE. The final part of the interview which deals with Westwood, building et al, should be published today.

Humbug

One clever solution to the local traffic problem and the soaring cost of petrol



Humbug the Shetland pony runs on hay and water and does not require an MOT, insurance or regular servicing. Marginally faster and less prone to rust than a Rover 216, he can manage a breath-taking average speed of 10Mph between his Manston home and Westwood Cross.

Only a two seater though, he might be considered a hatchback as a basket can be attached at the rear for any Tesco or Sainsbury supermarket shopping.

When Making Comments Please Note

Readers, please note that however strong your feelings might be on any subject, personal invective directed against any person or contribution is not permitted here. I've just taken down the conversation thread against one entry and in the interests of encouraging a healthy exchange of views and opinions, I would ask all visitors to keep to the rules, courtesy to others at all times please and absolutely NO personal remarks ar any time. Thank you. Ed:

Thanet Life

Up and Away with TGA

With the return of the good weather, the aircraft and the helicopters are out at Manston. Immediately below is a photograph and a slideshow of the Stearman biplane owned by TG Aviation, who offer flying training at Manston. You can find out about trial flights, getting your own pilot's license or even flying the Stearman by calling them on 01843 823520 or on the Web at www.tgaviation.com.


TG Aviation Stearman

Nicknamed the "Yellow Peril" thanks to its somewhat lively ground handling characteristics, the Stearman is a rugged classic of the pre and post world War II era. The Stearman "Kaydet", as it was officially named, was the only American aircraft used during World War II that was completely standardized for both Army and Navy use as the PT 13D (Army) and N2S-4 (Navy). Sold by the thousands after the war, the Stearman has found roles as as a trainer, crop duster and aerobatics trainer and this particular model in Navy colours, found its way to Thanet.

Fancy a Helicopter Ride?

Local company, Helicharter, 01843 822555 are also offering regular fifteen minute experience flights during weekends from the Spitfire Museum at Manston. I happened to catch them working a queue of people there at lunchtime today.

Remains of the Day

What now remains of the medieval manor of Dent De Lion in Garlinge between Westgate-on-Sea and Margate, now turned into apartments and houses on either side of the 14th century gatehouse that once looked into a very different world, the baronial fief of the local Dent De Lion (Tooth of the Lion) family.


Dent De Lion castle

To Boldly Go - To Thanet

This one caught me by surprise but it's true. In the book, Star Trek: The Next Generation: Do Comets Dream? by S. P. Somtow:

"Every five thousand years, the people of the planet Thanet believe, the world ends in fire and a new cycle of creation begins. Now the Last Days are once again upon them, and a fiery star draws near. This is the Death-Bringer, whose coming heralds the end of all things.... But Captain Picard faces a dilemma: how can he save the Thanetians' civilization without destroying the very beliefs upon which their culture is based?"

I wonder if the author has a distant connection with any hotels in Cliftonville?

Thanet Life

An Interview with Richard Samuel Part II
Thanet District Council's Chief Executive speaks to Simon Moores on improving local services.

How can the council offer more efficient services?

"I recently spent a half day on our customer service desk and somebody rang up to have some bulky rubbish removed. I can’t book it direct. I have to take the information, pass it to our client team who in turn can’t pass it by computer to the contractor and eventually way down the chain the resident will have his rubbish picked-up. Now I want to change that to the type of situation that the first person you speak to, can book your appointment and take your money and do it all in one hit and at the other end, the contract work force will have their work booked in advance for them, leading to a much faster service and reflects where we will be moving to over the next year or so. "

"There is so much work to do to modernise this authority that you do have to break it up into separate pieces."


Margate Beach

Why has Thanet fallen so far behind in its ability to deliver joined-up online services?

“It’s certainly true that Thanet started late. When I arrived here three years ago, I think email was barely functioning, we had a very unstable IT network that was constantly failing and we were under-resourced in terms of people who we had to provide the IT service. And when you think that data has incredible value, not just monetary in terms of its purpose and use, modern organisations simply can’t survive without good IT. We’ve made it a priority to start putting those problems right we quite early on we engaged a consultancy firm to give us a health check and have followed their recommendations faithfully and put effort into creating a secure and stable network which we have now and have put much more work and effort into web publishing and information and increasingly starting to use internet applications to do business but we are behind, there’s no doubt about that."

Does the council have an anti-technology culture?

"I think there is a culture of a reluctance to learn, highlighted by the audit commission last year and which was spot on. A reluctance to accept that members of the public might have the answers to some of our problems and that it’s not wrong to take on-board those ideas in the interests of improvement. To try and get everyone to accept this is not easy as people have ingrained ways of working and it something I try to encourage but you can’t track six hundred people’s interaction with the public everyday to check they are doing the right thing."

"The senior team here is pretty clear about the direction it is trying to take the council but we have a pretty big task in terms of changing thirty years of culture - since 1974 - and I have found that people in Thanet can often be quite insular about the opportunities that exist in the world and we see this in the resistance to change here and I know that’s true because I talk to people and I talk to employers around Thanet but we can do what we can with our organisation."

Council officers don’t’ appear to have engaged the concept of the internet as a delivery mechanism?

It’s not all bad news out of 400 authorities ranked, our arrangement came out as the second best in Kent after KCC in the way our front-end call handling has improved since the last - unfavourable - audit commission report. What has happened is that the infrastructure has been assembled so the first point of customer access can do as much for the customer as possible, phone being our highest volume. We want to hit as many requests for service from the first point of contact but until this year we haven’t had the infrastructure to this, which we have now and which is being moved across incrementally to make sure it works and doesn’t fall over, so the change is starting. Behind that is really a complete reconfiguration of what is called the Back office, removing the duplication of resources, and ensuring that we have a single point of contact who can deal with a broad range of enquiries efficiently, giving people better service as a consequence."

"If you can’t deliver the service, contract or otherwise to the person who needs it, then you’ve failed and I’m not looking to move delay from the back to the front office. Instead, I’m looking to improve the whole flow of activity."

"We introduced new standards of service that we expect our staff to follow in dealing with the public at the end of last year and we are about to launch a detailed training programme with all staff to reinforce our expectations, which will, for the first time be a consistent standard. This has come very late to Thanet but it’s being done now and you will see an improvement from the end of this year onwards, in the way in which people deal with the public because I completely agree with your point on passing the buck and the message we are trying to get across to our staff is, ‘If you take an enquiry from the public, it’s not unreasonable that you give your name and what you do. It’s not unreasonable to ask, how can I help you and actually mean it' and if you have to do a little more work to follow it through, you have to deal with it seriously and not leave it lying in your in-tray."

Thanet Life

Speed Demon

When Stephenson demonstrated his first railway engine over two hundred years ago, serious scientific debate surrounded the danger of its passengers being suffocated, through being unable to breathe the air at speeds above 30 MPH. This is a danger which is unlikely to be experienced behind Thanet’s loyal community of elderly Rover drivers along the seafront between Cliftonville and Birchington on any day of the week.



Having just attempted to drive home from the Northdown Road at the reckless speed of 23 MPH behind two Rovers, who, at walking pace, just managed to get through the Clock Tower lights before they changed to red, I’m left wondering what will happen if the Government pushes through its plans to re-test everyone over the age of seventy? Thanet’s roads would be a great deal emptier than they are now and the regular accidents and the occasional award-winning reversing manoeuvre into High Street shop windows might become a thing of the past.

At least, before the demise of Rover, seeing one of its estate models, gave the driver following a visible warning, that he or she should add on several hours to his journey time to Westwood Cross but without the presence of a Rover brand, how are we to know that a five mile diversion around Manston might be quicker than risking the lights on Hartsdown’s Coffin Hill?

Perhaps the answer is to once again employ people to walk in front of cars with a red flag? It’s quite possible that a few of our local drivers can still remember those days when life was rather more unhurried and less stressful than it is today.

The Thoughts of Richard Samuel:
Part 1

These are extracts from a forty-five minute interview with the Chief Executive of Thanet District Council. Cut down into small installments over the coming week for easier reading. Richard is questioned on the competence of the council, the growth of Westwood, the local economy, eGovernment services, traffic and more.



On the competence of the council to deliver local public services:

“We need to do much more in terms of understanding what concerns people, what they think in terms of the way we provide services to them and how we can make these better. This has been flagged-up to us from inspections and we are acutely aware of the problems. We have got much better in running public consultation on big issues, such as the future of Margate, which has delivered results that we will be able to feed back to local people and say ‘ this is where we think we’re going, this is what you told us’. More controversially the current consultation on environmental regulation and the control of Manston airport, we think is good practise and were’ running a multi-faceted , lengthy consultation to gather people’s views and the results of this will be in the public domain this summer and decisions will be made from this”.

“The council has a lot to put right, there have been years of under-investment in our key infrastructure, such as IT, such as the amount of money put into projects which are of top priority to local residents and we are trying to put that right but you can’t do this overnight. The other theme which is definitely an issue for the council is that it’s trying to do too much with too little in the way of resources.” We are trying to identify areas where we can scale back the council activity, where we can stop doing things we aren’t doing that well and we can stop putting money into things that arguably we shouldn’t be putting money into so that we can allocate these funds into areas that we know are high priority for local people”.

On the apparent lack of initiative shown by Thanet Council. The “It’s not my problem, problem.”

“I agree, the council is actually doing something about this at the moment. We have inherited a fragmented system of responsibilities for things that the general public would see as integrated issues, such as litter in the parks and litter on the roads, which are dealt with by different contractors on behalf of the council. !

"We recognise that there is an illogicality in the arrangements that have come to be over many years and we are in the process of integrating all of those services, so we have made the first step, starting with parks and next April we will take responsibility for the refuse and street cleaning service and there are some ancillary services, such as toilet cleaning and toilet repairs that we are also looking to bring back in house. Why? Because we believe economies and efficiencies can be achieved by integrating those services better and this ‘Passing the buck approach’ which I do recognise exists will be dealt with once we have re-established that direct control and re-arranged the services. It’s taken some years to unravel that because you have to wait for many different private contracts to end and we are reasonably confident tat when we go with the big bang next April, local residents will see, hopefully quite a lot of improvement."

Coming next what Thanet is doing with IT and eGovernment.

Sounds Familiar?

"People are rightly fed-up with street corner and shopping centre thugs, yobbish behaviour - sometimes from children as young as 10 or 11 whose parents should be looking after them - Friday and Saturday night binge-drinking which makes our town centres no-go areas for respectable citizens, of the low-level graffiti, vandalism and disorder that is the work of a very small minority that makes the law-abiding majority afraid and angry."

Tony Blair in Parliament yesterday.

Thanet Life

Comments In Brief

Water shortage threatens

When I was at school here in Thanet, there was talk of the water table giving out and water shortages in the future. Plans for the island’s future involve building at least six thousand new homes as well as supporting infrastructure. There’s a huge question-mark over the availability of water into the future, as the weather becomes observably drier. I rather suspect I may have left the island well before Thanet reaches the population density anticipated by the South East Plan as I don’t believe we can accommodate the degree of change that the future imagines.

Too Many Flashers

An apparently growing population of sex perverts appears to be an unpleasant fact of life in Thanet and the number of reported incidents may reflect the “Out of sight, out of mind” policy of other local authorities in England, dumping such characters on our doorstep. I’m wondering if the people of Thanet should consider taking more affirmative action to prevent this abuse of our hospitality. Petition No10 perhaps against the policy of using us as some kind of "Gulag"for the social service challenges of other councils?

Thanet Life

More Coastal Wardens Needed

We need more volunteer coastal wardens for the Thanet beaches, to help monitor and report on wildlife activity, coastal erosion and more. If you would like to volunteer please contact Naomi www.thanetcoast.org.uk or call 01843 577409

This Island Life

Coming soon an interview with council Chief Executive, Richard Samuel: Time we had a say in the matter?

"Eighty local authorities in England send their problem children, their homeless and their mental health cases to Thanet."

Green Watch Rescue


Green Watch-113
Originally uploaded by DrMoores.

Dramatic footage of Thanet's "Green Watch" performing a mountain rescue exercise at St Mildred's Bay Westgate this afternoon. Click the photo to see more or watch the complete slide show of the action.

Pictured in this "Safe Access" training exercise are:

Paul Ward, Steve Wright, Neil Parr, Jo Ditton, Karl Waldron, Brian Mileham. Not pictured, office in charge, Ian Marshall.

Happy Slapping

It had to happen, you'll see from the new embedded newsfeed on the web page today, that the "happy slapping" craze has finally reached Thanet or in this case, a skateboard park in Ramsgate. Videos of the slaps are sent to other mobile phones and posted on the internet.

We can thank our entertainment challenged media for the craze. The madcap US stunt show "Jackass" as well as a British version known as Dirty Sanchez have been broadcast on MTV and Channel 4 with the appropriate "Don't try this at home" warning to juveniles, who promptly go out and do just this. Police in Kent say they have not received any complaints about "happy slapping" so far but even if they did, weeks might pass before they arrive to take a statement.

The only good news is that as an assault, it can carry up to five years in jail but the bad news is that as this unfortunate trend invariably involves gangs of hooded teenagers, who scatter once the crime has been committed, I'm not aware of any successful prosecutions to date.

I wonder if MTV introduced a show involving teenagers videoing their friends quietly engaging in school activities, whether this might catch on or not? Spiked Online has a good analysis of the craze which you can find here.

Inspired by the prevalent Rap culture, the young man in the photo below describes himself in the online forum he belongs to as:

"My name's Danny and I is a gansta with a top screwface like. My manor is round the **** and I don't take no messing from any blood unless he is bigger than me. Then I get my top screwface on and front him out cuz most of these gangstas are wannabes and pussys and not real like me. I is a real gangsta man. I nicked phones and broken into old ladies houses and everything man. If you've beef with who I am then go **** yourself like."



Thanet Life

To Dublin with EUjet

I'm off to Dublin with EUjet next week and for those of you who might be interested, there are several internet forums available that track the EUjet customer experience.



One is AirlineQuality.com

And another is at ePinions.

Opinions on both are largely positive, as is my own experience of using our local airline for business. If you use such sites yourself in future it will build up a useful picture of overall customer satisfaction, as there seems at present, to be a level of misinformation "flying around" in respect of EUjet's scheduling and reliability, largely a consequence of the awful weather we had before Easter with fog and snow closing down Manston at times. I spoke to the airline's Stuart McGoldrick again this week and he's considering publishing the airlines statistics on the website so that passengers can see how well it's now hitting the reliability targets it has set for itself.

You can find a slideshow of EUjet Fokker 100 photos HERE if you are interested.

Talking of rumours, there's one in circulation on the internet, based on an alleged internal email leak, that "EUujet will soon be opening a new base out of Stansted." Anyone care to comment?

Thanet Life

Interview with a Chief Executive

After some perseverance, I've been granted an interview with our Thanet Council Chief Executive, Richard Samuel, tomorrow afternoon. This demonstrates that Thanet Life is finally on the radar screen. If you have questions that you would like to have asked, the more forensic the better, please attach them as comments here.


Broadstairs 1920's

I will be asking about weapons of mass-destruction, the Thanet economy, anti-social behaviour, and other pressing issues of local interest.

Thanet Life

A Bump in the Road

It strikes me that one doesn't need to be an LSE graduate to work out what the impact of any recession might be on the expansion of Westwood Cross. With retail sales figures he worst for a decade and the housing market stalled, people simply aren't spending money and that's bad news for the economy and with it, Government's plans for the Health Service, education taxation et al.



With more megastores arriving at Westwood, the pressure on the shops in the surrounding towns will be even more intense and if the Britain's economic bubble were to burst, we might conceivably see the closure of large shopping outlets with no equivalent local shops left to fill the gap, having been squeezed-out by such competition over the last decade and the local job-losses that would inevitably occur as a result.

Let's all hope it's an economic bump in the road. I can remember only too well the line of charity shops that opened along Windsor High Street during the last recession. You would never believe it looking at the place today.

Gale's View

Come in, Number Ten, your time is up!

If anyone was in doubt before the general election that Mr. Blair had misled the House of Commons about the intelligence that precipitated the war in Iraq then the information that emerged during the election campaign must surely have convinced them. The production of the Attorney General's "revised opinion" was more damning, even, than the "dodgy dossier" and the WMD claim.



Ministers that mislead the House have only one decent option: they resign.

It is, perhaps, not surprising that many on the Government benches in the new House of Commons clearly regard the leader of their party as damaged goods and are calling for him to go and to go swiftly. Every day that he remains in office will now diminish his reputation further and as Prime Ministers (Conservative ones are no exception) appear to be concerned about their "place in history" that alone should concentrate the mind of the present incumbent of 10, Downing Street, "Third Term Tony" could well become "The Man Who Refused to Go Honourably" in very short order. Prime Minister's question time will become, if he stays, a very hostile environment indeed.

There is a more serious aspect to this, however, than party-political advantage. The reputation of the man who heads up the G8 and presides over the European Union matters because it is by that reputation that the United Kingdom is judged abroad. If the probity of the Prime Minister is in serious doubt - and it most certainly is - then we, and those who look to us for example, are all the poorer as a result.

Even with the economy heading for choppy water and the rocks and tax rises in some form just over the horizon a less tarnished Prime Minister might be harder for the Opposition to handle, but better that than the present squalid grasp on the door handle of power. "In God's name go" seems an entirely reasonable request.

A Hitchhikers Guide to Thanet
Competition

To celebrate the release of possibly the most awful film version of a brilliant television series ever made, I'm running a competition for the best entry under "Thanet" for the the new "Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy."



The winning entry to be published here and made famous throughout the known universe, which it will be thanks to our strong Google rating. No more than three hundred words should do it. Either email them me as editor or add the entry as a comment.

Thanet Life

Software Puts Local e-forums Within Every Council's Reach

New open source software is now available to help councils set up online forums focused specifically on local issues at little to no cost.

The enhanced web forum technology has been used to power pilot projects by two English local authorities as part of the £4 million Local e-Democracy National project. A report on the trials, issued on 5 May, judged the initial phase as "highly successful", highlighting that the use of open source software presents a "significant advantage" for councils from the cost/benefit perspective.

I wonder if they'll discover this here in Thanet? Would anyone care to offer a bet?

Thanet Life

Minister of State

Victorious Thanet South MP, Dr.Steve Ladyman, has been re-shuffled from health into a new incarnation as a Minister of State in the Department of Transport. His first job should sensibly be to sort out the traffic chaos around Westwood Cross or even the revitalization of Ramsgate Harbour but he's more likely to be wrapped-up trying to make the trains run on time, if at all!

Thanet's New Waste Site: Zero Out of Ten.

Barrie Smith writes: "I would like to know how much of the council's money was wasted by renovating the local tip? "


Westgate 1897

"They have really done us proud this time, reducing the amount of space to access the bins by two thirds!"

"The bins are end on, so only one or two people can access each bin along a pontoon at the same time. "

"No trolleys along the pontoons, so if you are an elderly person of less than Herculean strength you will not be able to use the bins. "

"There are many lanes for parking, so when busy, people arriving first will be blocked in by those arriving later, then everyone will be blocked in. "

The Masterpiece:

"Making the circulation anti-clockwise, so those exiting the site have to cross the line of those waiting to enter. "

"It seems it was designed by Ken Livingstone!" (Anyone who has to drive in London will understand)

A Way with Flowers

Ballard's School Of Floristry is running a demonstration day at St Augustine's in Westgate on 28th June. (10:00-3:00 PM). With demonstrations by international designers, the day includes coffee, lunch and afternoon tea and tickets are £45.00.



Call 01843 835528 for more information and tickets.

Windmills

With the Windmill farm ready for its final phase of development this week, the view out to sea from Whitstable and Herne Bay will very soon look like the picture below.

Super Size Me

“That’ll be £4.40 mate” said the teenager handing me my drive-thru meal at Burger King at Westwood. “Thank you sir” I replied, driving away and wondering where the traditional concept of customer service had gone, an experience not uncommon when dealing with the teenage workforce.

Just back from a two hour crystal-ball gazing exercise and Q&A session with the management team of one of Britain’s most successful businesses and my own worries over education and workforce skills appear shared.

The business in question you will be familiar with and it mixes the old and the new highly successfully. Like any sensible company today, it needs to plan ahead, looking at both the economy and the impact of new technology on consumers and the workforce and like many of the companies I know, it employs the smartest and the best and worries that the young people coming into the general workforce lack many of the basic skills that business needs, literacy and numeracy being but two.

Having just walked-past a group of teenagers hanging around outside the station at Westgate, I’m left wondering how we can possibly close the chasm that exists between many of our local teenagers and the needs of business in the 21st century. Wouldn’t it be great if we could take a class of ordinary children from a Thanet school into the Microsoft campus in Reading for a day, just to show them what the world of work can be like if they aspire to a life that involves more than “hanging around” the streets of Thanet. Don’t mistake me, there are many children from Thanet who achieve remarkable things and are a credit to their community but there are many more who have lost the race before they even start.

If we’re going to talk grandly about attracting business to the island and with it more jobs, then employers and schools need to focus more sharply on our teenage “raw material” in a competitive and demanding jobs market. A good start might be with basic communications, as in “Would you like a large fries with that sir” rather than “That’ll be £4.40 mate”.

PS.. There's nothing wrong with calling one's friends "Mate".. I do all the time.. it's a local convention that catches on quickly but one's business customers aren't normally mates and most shops and call centres outside Thanet won't ask "What can I do for you mate?" and perhaps we should explain this to our teenage population?

Thanet Life

Hard Knocks

Following on from the news that Westwood will soon expand further, with the introduction of new "Megastores", such as PC World, is the worrying statistic that April showed the worst retail sales for five years, with DIY stores among the worst hit.


Three members of the crew of HMS Thanet

Local shops have good reason to fear the "Double whammy" of a decline in consumer confidence and the arrival of a Vogon Constructor Fleet at Westwood Cross. This will, over time, quickly pick-off the sales of those shops that survived it's first appearance, while at the same time offering a relief for Thanet residents forced to drive to Canterbury for the choice of shopping and prices that doesn't exist locally at present. It's a dilemma that the council doesn't yet have an answer to but increased local parking charges and higher business rates are unlikely to offer a long-term solution.



Meanwhile, there's the local tragedy surrounding Pearce Signs and the redundancies faced by its workforce. It's a microcosm of similar harsh experiences elsewhere, Rover and Marconi to name but two companies and I wonder, whether the retirement provision for the workforce is in a better state than that of other UK businesses facing a similar experience this year?

Quiet Weekend

Favourable cross-channel winds and weather permitting, I'm over at an historic aircraft fly-in and airshow in Antwerp with our local biplane over the weekend and away on business most of Monday. Normal editorial duties will then be resumed.

Margate's Dreamland Reopens this Month

For anyone looking for information on the re-opening of Margate's Dreamland amusement park, the opening date is set for Saturday May 21st and the new owner, Harry Ayers, is introducing 15 more rides for the summer season.


Dreamland Margate -Photos Airads

All the Dreamland rides will be token-based as before and prices are expected to be £10 for 20 tokens or £20 for 45 tokens. The new Drop Tower ride will take twelve people 115 feet into the air and then drop them back to earth in freefall for several stomach-churning seconds.

You can find Martin MacDonald's BBC Video Nation Report on Margate and Dreamland.

We'll be sending our own Childrens' editor Charlotte, around the resurrected Dreamland with her digital camera for a photographic review of the rides.

Thanet Life

Street Traders to be Banned

Hooray, it looks as if the Council may finally move against rogue street traders and in particular, the sale of cars from busy roads, around Thanet, including Westbrook Avenue and Westgate Bay Avenue, both accident hotspots and regularly forced into single lane progress by badly parked bangers for sale!

About time too but will the traders take any notice I wonder, unless the council choose to aggressively “tow” the offenders, who frequently hide behind a string of untraceable mobile phone numbers.

Thanet Life

By Dawn's Early Light

Congratulations to Roger Gale and Steven Ladyman, who both managed to hang on to their seats and Robert Burgess who was elected to Kent County Council.

While Gale was down -0.7% on the vote, Ladyman, who may count himself fortunate to have kept his seat, lost most of his ground, over 5% to UKIP and the LibDems who between them, blocked the Conservative vote of Mark MacGregor from gaining crucial extra votes.

Commiseration to both Mark and to local councillor Iris Johnston who gave the elected MPs a strong run and while it never seemed likely that Thanet North would lose a Conservative majority, Thanet South remains more marginal than ever before and if it were not for the protest vote, a change of MPs would have been likely, a harsh lesson for the Conservatives and Labour both in any future General Election.

Thanet North



Thanet South


Source the BBC

Labour have another term in power, albeit with a dismally low national share of the vote of around 36%. Never has a government been elected with such limited support from the voters. From the heights reached in 1997, their vote share has slid most of the way back to where it was in 1992, before "New Labour" came in.

Thanet Life

First Aid & Rescue

GMA Adventure Days have introduced a First Aid & Rescue course for children in conjunction with St John Ambulance and it sounds like an ideal learning experience for schools to become involved in.

Pupils will receive properly qualified First Aid training in their school, followed by an "Adrenalin fuelled rescue mission", a proper accident scenario at an offsite location, which will test their First Aid skills. Certificates of competence and pocket First Aid guides will be awarded to pupils who complete the course.

The cost for each pupil is £35 and this is suitable for primary classes upward. Call Polly on 01622 831643 or email her at gmafun.co.uk

GMA also run a wide-ranging series of Adventure Days for adults from helicopter rides to off-road driving.

Thanet Life

Red Letter Day

Just back from towing Labour and UKIP's election banner around Kent during the day and a new record number of emails from our readers have been landing in my PDA cellphone in the aircraft, so I've been reading en-route.



Let me just say for a moment that this website takes a satirical and frequently cynical view of politics, anyone's politics and tries hard not to take the subject too seriously, although my own political affiliation is bound to emerge at times as a somewhat disillusioned "advisor" to Mr Blair.

Fortunately, today is the last day of election madness and it's really now a question of counting the votes that will lead to an historic third term for Tony Blair and very probably, a first term for Gordon Brown; perhaps as early as Christmas, as several of the political pundits are suggesting.



There's been an element of mud-slinging emerging in some of the comments this week, stoked-up by political sentiment. Could I ask that we keep such exchanges as objective and as polite as possible, funny or satirical even, now that the election is over. If you have your own views, strong or otherwise, there is nothing preventing any reader or indeed local politician submitting a piece for review and this has happened on several occasions over the last three months and we strongly encourage a politically neutral stance on subjects of importance to local people.

Thanet Life

Red Banner Fleet

The howling gale outside may keep the voters away from the polling stations on Thursday. If you visit the very good Theyr weather site you can see an animation of tomorrow's weather which looks rather much like today in Kent but with the wind a little less strong.


"Watch out for Tory anti-aircraft fire over Canterbury boys"

If we can get off the ground in the morning, I'm allegedly towing both the UKIP and the Labour Party election banners with Airads. This has already caused a few moments of humour today I'm told by pilot Bob Shilling. Apparently Birmingham Control asked him what he was towing and he told them, "The Labour party election banner", At which the controller replied: "Clear Off out of my airspace then", a non-standard ATC phrase, which apparently prompted some chuckles and comments from the pilots of other aircraft flying into Birmingham and Coventry airports on a rather dull Wednesday afternoon.

Pilot Bob has been awarded "The Order of the Red Banner of Labour", personally by the Prime Minister and can be seen in the final photograph, proudly wearing the awards won in action over marginal Labour constituencies in the North of the country.

A Vote in Time

The Sun newspaper today has a quite shameless “plug” for Tony Blair, apparently a virile “five times a night man” at the peak of his fitness and of course, the natural choice of the British people, the Sun believes, as the next Prime Minister.


St Mildred's Bay 1918

It’s sad to think that tabloid newspaper coverage will influence the results of tomorrow’s general election as between them; they take propaganda to its political limit in our democracy and frequently beyond.

Regardless of whether Tony Blair can stay awake long enough after a long day at the office to keep Cherie amused, here in Thanet we need to consider what’s best for us.

My own opinion, is that the Liberal Democrats present a spoiled vote, as their central policies are not economically and practically viable and they are committed to surrendering what’s left of our sovereignty to Europe. In Thanet, the argument must surely surround the selection of Labour or Conservative MPs.

Aside from the main event, the election of a new government or the continuation of the old, we need to ask ourselves who can do the best possible job at Westminster for the people of the area? On a personal note, I would be pleased to see Roger Gale voted back as Thanet North MP, because I think he does a good job with an enormous burden of constituency cases to deal with. In Westgate, I'd like to see Robert Burgess voted-in as Kent County Councillor, representing a younger generation of local politician, much needed in the area.

In Thanet South, I’m not sure about Steve Ladyman’s own record and neither, it seems are many of our readers. Thanet South, with a myriad of local problems to deal with may need a change of sitting MP and if you’re not voting Ladyman then sensibly, you have the UKIP and LibDem protest vote or Mark MacGregor to choose from.

Unlike the Sun newspaper, I don’t believe the electorate have to be led by the nose to the polling station. People have had weeks to listen to the issues and policies and need to decide whether they want an even “Bigger brother” government, wedded to higher taxation and a large public sector workforce to support or one which is more agile, offers lower taxation and greater citizen responsibility.

I’ve watched the growth of "Big Government" with strong feelings over the last seven years and with it, the steady loss of many of the freedoms that once defined us as a nation. Another five years and the revolution introduced by Tony Blair and New Labour will not be easily undone and the electorate will need to decide tomorrow, on the government that is most likely to offer the future they wish to live in.

Thanet Life

BBC Discovers IQ Capsules-

BBC breakfast news has discovered that giving children a supplement of fatty acids improves concentration and behaviour. In fact, this is the result of research carried out in Durham schools, which confirms many similar projects across the world. The surprise is that it comes as a surprise to anyone as it's been known for ages.


Fed on a junk food diet

Deprive children of these essential fatty acids and oils, add-in a mixture of junk food, with a little help from the extended use of a "dummy" or "soother" at an early age and you have a recipe for under-achievement and behavioural problems. If we glance around us in Thanet and I've been looking at the primary school league tables, then it suggests that the children who are most likely to have the three factors above in common, come from social backgrounds that share the same schools and are less likely to be informed on the subject.

It's not rocket science and in the eighties, there was an intelligence testing project by an American scientist friend, who worked with Professor Hans Eysenck at based at Oxford, and who published several books on the subject, popular in the United States. The dummy, by the way, is demonstrated by research to reduce a child's intelligence by as much as 10% and so needs to be used very sparingly and not, as in many cases frequently seen around Thanet, used beyond infancy to keep a child quiet.

Thanet Life

They Work for You

With an election only two days away, undecided voters can visit the website "TheyWorkforyou.com to see the voting record of our incumbent MPs in Thanet.

Roger Gale (Thanet North - Conservative) is:

Quite strongly against introducing foundation hospitals.
Moderately against introducing student top-up fees
Quite strongly against Labour's anti-terrorism laws
Moderately for the Iraq war
A mixture of for and against introducing ID cards.
Very strongly for the fox hunting ban
Very strongly against equal gay rights

Dr Steve Ladyman (Thanet South- Labour) is:

Very strongly for introducing foundation hospitals.
Very strongly for introducing student top-up fees.
Very strongly for Labour's anti-terrorism laws.
Very strongly for the Iraq war.
Very strongly for introducing ID cards.
Very strongly for the fox hunting ban.
Very strongly for equal gay rights.

For more details on their respective voting records please follow the links against their names to see their detailed Parliamantary dossiers.

Thanet Life

A Letter from Iraq

Letter of the day goes to a Mr Arthur Nelson, allegedly serving in Iraq.

Arthur writes: "I am presently serving in Iraq with a coalition army. I am seeking your assistance to evacuate the sum of $17, million to your country or any other safe country of your choice, as far as I can be assured that my share will be safe in your care until I complete my service here."

He adds: "Some money in various currencies was discovered concealed in barrels with piles of weapons and ammunitions at a location near one of Saddam's old palaces during a search and rescue operation, and it was agreed by the members of my unit present that the money be shared amongst us, this was quite an illegal thing to do, but I tell you what? No compensation can make up for the risks we have taken with our lives for the course of freedom, and to conceal this kind of money became a problem for us, so with the help of a contractor with a British security company working here, I was able to deposit the package with their company."

Finally, he points out: "I do not know for how long we will remain here, and I have survived two suicide bomb attacks, this and other reasons I will mention later has prompted me to reach out for help."

You might want to take Arthur up on his offer, so I've included his email address and told him that he can expect a warm welcome from the people of Thanet.

Flying Visit

"I wasn't sure at first who the man in the tie was", said local pilot, Bob Shilling, pictured towering above everyone else in the photo below.



The group in question had arrived unexpectedly on the farm and were asking to be smuggled into the nearest marginal constituency, which led ex-policeman Bob to believe that one of them might be an asylum seeker, or even worse a Labour Cabinet Minister.

Normally, his Airads Cessna 172 holds four people but it's amazing how many extra voters can be squeezed into a constituency during a General Election, with the two smaller passengers in the picture both clutching their postal votes.

Bob is towing the Labour Party's election banner this week and on election day, I'll be joining him to write a small news feature for "Today's Pilot" magazine, as he tows a message for two of the political parties on the same day. As for the Health Secretary, Dr John Reid, he's been delivered to a remote sheep farm in the outer Hebrides where he may feel more at home.

You Must be Joking

Thanet Council appear to have run out of blue paint or Tracey Emin has struck again in Westgate.

I'm sure you'll agree that bright blue and dark green are not the two colours that best compliment each other and you can clearly see where painter "Jacko" ran out of brush strokes and paint at the top left, two weeks ago.

Do we need to organise a "whip-round" to buy more paint for the council or do you think that they'll come back and finish the job one day. I'm opening a book on the odds, guess when the job will be finished?



One reader writes in with a special award to the Highways Department of Thanet District Council for the sign at the traffic lights in Westgate which reads:

"Wait for the Green Man to Cross".

"I waited for ages and never saw a green man at all."

"I am sure they mean "Do not cross until green man sign illuminates."

Bank Holiday Monday

Three views of the same Bank Holiday Monday, starting with the regular local problem of alcohol consumption, scattered along the seafront. You only have to look at Thanet's Off-licenses with shelves stacked with Vodka and Lager to see that government attempts to introduce a more civilised and continental style to the nation's drinking habits, is bound to fail miserably.



Two happier seafront scenes below, which illustrate the traditional British Bank Holiday weekend. It's the second of May and the children are already swimming in the sea, comforted by the thought that there's a 99 ice-cream with a chocolate stick waiting for them at the end of the ordeal.



When I was eight or nine, I attended a school called Canterbury House in Westgate run by an admirer of the ancient Spartan system of education, a Major Berry. Swimming was mandatory at the start of the Spring term and so, regardless of the weather, you would see a class of small boys marched down to the seafront, twice a week for a swim in the sea. In a Monty Python kind of way, late snow, gales or illness were not an excuse!

The three people below have the right idea. Enjoy the sunshine and the view of the beach, which make Thanet one of the prettiest seaside spots in the UK in the right conditions.

Thanet - The New Dubai?

More frenzied election coverage this morning with Labour and the Lib Dems throwing rocks at each other while the Conservatives enjoy the spectacle.

Labour are of course making the economy a central theme of their campaign but what worries me is that none of the parties are addressing the real future of our economy because it’s too frightening for the voters and Europe, not just the UK, has no solutions beyond the text of the Lisbon Agenda and a number of straws to clutch at.



Very briefly, we can see the evidence in the demise of Rover, the collapse of Marconi and thousands of other companies over the last decade. I’ve been on the news a couple of times to talk about the outsourcing of jobs and manufacturing to India and the Far East but it was Ben Verwaayan, the Chief Executive of BT who said at a meeting before Christmas:

“In Bangalore, I visited a campus with 15,000 young people, with an average age of 24, average month’s salary, five hundred dollars, and average qualification MBA plus. We think we have a system that gets the best out of people and makes them productive. Think again. We all have a computer but your computer is worthless unless you use it as an instrument to compete and you need advanced networks to compete.”

Ben is pointing to the fact that India produces twenty times more science graduates than the UK and that in Asia, tens of millions of people can choose between fibre to the home and ADSL with speeds of up to 1GB to homes in Hong Kong this month.

Presently, the UK as a net oil exporter is benefiting from the high oil prices but when our own oil capacity runs out, we’ll suddenly feel the pain as oil prices elsewhere continue to rise to keep pace with Asia’s demand.

The UK is balanced on a knife-edge supported by a £Trillion of consumer debt and high house prices. It’s only low interest rates that keep us from being dragged into recession. In a place like Thanet, we need to ask where the jobs will come from that will make us competitive not only domestically but globally?


Another kind of seaside

As taxes rise, which is inevitable under any government, the burden will increasingly fall on the businesses and middle-classes in an increasingly dependent economy where over a third of the population are employed by the public sector. We need to understand as a society that simply sending everyone to university doesn’t solve the shortage of plumbers and electricians and that degrees in “Rock music” will not give us the skilled workforce that large international companies, such as Pfizer need, in combination with low taxation, to keep their businesses in the UK.

I see the mobile jobcentre rolling about Thanet on a regular basis and one day, one chap, assuming I was unemployed, even jumped out of it and asked me if I wanted to come in and find a new job. "What can you do", he asked?"

Do we have a jobs “task force” for the island and in it, anyone who really understands what the implications of a changing global economy might have on our local workforce? I wonder?

Abingdon Away Day

I was sneaking out of house on my motorcycle early this morning, when a passer-by on a mountain-bike stopped and asked: "Are you not Blogging this morning then?"

I wondered if it was the motorbike that had given my identity away but it turned out that it was a local reader, Keith Smith, who had been introduced to Thanet Life by his neighbour, Barrie Smith. "I'm off to the Abingdon airshow", I replied, which is where I've been all day, staggering home again at 7PM after flying over there and back via Rochester for fuel, in Terry Brown's fabulous Stampe SV4 biplane.


With Terry Brown in the Stampe

Now with the registration G-BRXP, it started life as a French Stampe SV4A before being assigned to the Armee de L'Aire as a trainer. In 1955, it moved to St Yan (SFASA) a special aerobatics unit, with a distinctive red and yellow colour scheme in which it is painted today.

Between 1956, its first major overhaul and 1961, it served with the Patroille de France, St Yan touring airshow, and then found its way to the United States.

In 2001 it was bought by Terry Brown and shipped to the legendary Brian Mayo at Maypole Air in Kent for a total rebuild, which was carried out over a three year period.

At Abingdon, Terry and I managed to find ourselves "volunteered" to hold the plastic poles and a ribbon while Denny Dobson, an old friend and the UK's leading professional aerobatics pilot dove between us and cut it, almost parting my hair in the process. You can see the slideshow of our Abingdon day out HERE if you're interested in aircraft, with some rather nice action photos of the Extra 300 and the WW II Mustang.


Denny Dobson in action!

Ed: The official photo site of the Abingdon show is now available. This shows all the action from the day, including the wheel falling of the Chinook helicopter, more Denny Dobson photos and the Stampe landing at Airshows.org.

Thanet Life