Thanet Life

The BBC reports that Infratil, the new owner of Kent International Airport has announced that charter flights will resume from summer 2006.

Infratil said it would reveal the name of the new charter operator at a news conference to be held on Wednesday.

The company took over the airport, based at Manston, in August last year after the previous owner PlaneStation went into administration.

Freight services started again from September, but regular passenger flights have yet to return.

It’s nice to see that our local news sources, radio and print, are dipping in to the website to see if there are any new stories and test the pulse of local opinion.

When I arrived home today, it was to find a handful of news releases from the police, who look as if they have been busy. It also strikes me that many of the younger people given ASBOs, don’t give a damn and carry on re-offending until they are finally “Banged-up” away from the rest of us. Perhaps I’m wrong but I recall an early story from this month on ThanetLife where a respected inner London social worker appeared to be expressing much the same view. You may have read that tagging technology also doesn’t work properly but the technologists have known about this for ages and in some areas, it’s about as useful as placing a rubber band around a criminals arm and saying, “There, don’t go outside because we’ll find out, not.”

Meanwhile, Al Jazeera, the Arabic television news channel will be visiting Thanet tomorrow, which is nice!

Thanet Extra reports that armed police were called after a man reported being shot at by a sniper from a house in Margate on Monday night.

The passer-by said he was fired at from a home in Millmead Road as he walked through the Millmead housing estate at about 7.30pm.

Officers in flak jackets assessed the seriousness of the situation and made what a spokesman described as "an armed inquiry" before arresting an 18-year-old man at a house.

He was cautioned for possessing a firearm with intent to cause fear of violence. A paintball firing air weapon was seized at the scene. No-one was injured in the incident.

A police spokesman said: "Some of the ball-bearing and paintball guns are extremely realistic in appearance.

"When armed officers are called to investigate a firearms incident their first duty is public safety and they will react according to what they see.

"There is always potential risk for someone using a lifelike weapon in a threatening manner to be at risk of being shot or even killed."

A 14-year-old Westgate boy has been given a two-year Anti-Social Behaviour Order that stops him from swearing, spitting and going near a local supermarket.

Daniel James Longbottom, (pictured with police permission) of Linksfield Road, was given the order by Margate magistrates on Wednesday, 25 January.

The order prohibits Daniel from:

• Using foul and abusive language in a public place;
• Spitting at any person or immediately next to any person;
• Entering the Londis Store on Cambourne Avenue, Westgate, or going within 10m of the front door.

PC Sue Luck, Thanet’s anti-social behaviour officer, said magistrates had recognised the police and public’s concern about Daniel’s behaviour.

“The courts and police don’t take these matters lightly. Anti-Social Behaviour Orders are a strong measure imposed by the courts to control a person’s behaviour when all other avenues have been tried unsuccessfully,” she said.

“It’s important to remember that ASBOs are not a punishment. They are a way of trying to reign in behaviour that causes harassment, alarm and distress to the public.

“In Daniel’s case we hope that he will obey the rules of his order, realise that his behaviour isn’t appropriate and in future think about how his actions affect others in his community.”

To report a breach of the conditions of an Anti-Social Behaviour Order, contact Kent Police on (01843) 231 055.

Prison for Zoe and Carla Sharpe

Two Thanet sisters have each been sentenced to 14 months imprisonment for affray and breaching the conditions of their Anti-Social Behaviour Orders.

Carla, 21, and Zoe, 19, Sharpe appeared in Canterbury Crown Court on Thursday, 26 January, charged with affray and breaching their Anti-Social Behaviour Orders on 26 October last year after they assaulted members of the public in Queen Street, Ramsgate. Carla was also charged with common assault.

However before the sisters can start serving their 14-month custodial sentences they first have to finish serving a jail term they were given in March last year for another affray matter in Margate.

On that occasion they were sentenced to a year’s jail and given a three-year ASBO, which included a condition not to assault, threaten or intimidate any person.

The sisters were released from prison in September last year, however were remanded into custody on 26 October following being charged with the latest offences.

Their new 14-month sentence will begin on the completion of their current sentence in mid-March.

More than 50 people have been arrested for burgling houses in the two months since Kent Police began its campaign to drive down burglary crime on the isle, however the burglary rate is still up.

Of the 55 people arrested since 1 December, 13 have been remanded in custody or sentenced to imprisonment. Officers have also executed more than 30 search warrants for stolen property.

Detective Sergeant Tony Pledger, the officer in charge of efforts to drive down burglaries on the isle, said that despite the high number of prosecutions, burglary rates were still high because thieves were still being given too many opportunities to get into resident’s homes.

“A large number of the burglaries we are getting at the moment have resulted from homes being left insecure,” he said. “A lot of burglars go from house to house looking for unlocked doors and windows, and unfortunately they have been finding a lot lately.
“Residents have to remember to lock their homes up securely, even when they are at home, otherwise they are giving burglars an invitation to literally walk in and take whatever they want.”

DS Pledger asked residents to also be wary of anyone hanging around their neighbourhood and to report any suspicious activity to the police.

“Everyday we have uniformed officers and detectives out on the streets and back alleys trying to catch burglars and drive down crime, but we still really need residents’ help to bring them to justice,” he said.

“Be suspicious of people hanging about your street, get to know your neighbours and join a Neighbourhood Watch Scheme.

“If anyone wants anymore information about home security or joining Neighbourhood Watch then call Thanet’s Watch Liaison Officer, Terry McCormick, on (01843) 222 176.”

He joined the late train from Victoria at Herne Bay, a young man in his twenties, in a paint-stained black bomber jacket, dark rings under his eyes. Sitting down two seats across from me, he produced a bottle of vodka from his pocket and filled a plastic cup with the contents, drinking it down in large satisfied gulps. Feeling better for it, he rolled a cigarette on his knee and then after fiddling with it for a while, looking around for any sign of the conductor, he produced a Bic lighter and started to smoke, unpertubed by the "No Smoking" signs on the windows of the carriage. The two of us left the train when it arrived in Westgate, very different journeys home to the same small town.

I had a rather surreal experience at Westminster yesterday afternoon inside Portcullis House, where the MPs live. I’m assuming there was a meeting taking place between an Islamic interest group and Members of Parliament, because at 5’O’clock, the corridor filled with the faithful, prostrating themselves in the direction of Mecca and causing me to negotiate a suitably respectful path around them on the way to the meeting I was chairing. This was interrupted, not by the call to prayer but by the division bell, causing me to lose the MPs I had present as they ran-off towards the House to vote on some obscure new government legislation such as the Regulation of Ruminants Act.

Earlier, with an hour to spare between appointments on the way from Holborn, I had dropped-in to the British Museum, which I haven’t visited since I was a child. Architecturally, it’s an even more impressive building today and I took a few camera photos of the exhibits. The Roman Britain gallery was closed and I asked the curator if anyone had told the Romans. He laughed. One can imagine Julius Caesar landing his army on the beach at Dover in 55BC, only to be told, “Sorry mate, were’ closed. Come back in 47 AD will you and bring the Emperor Claudius and some Elephants with you.”

The curious thing, I thought, about the British Museum today was that it was packed with Chinese tourists, all moving around in excited, shoving groups of never less than thirty. I commented on this new phenomenon in my weblog over a year ago; how the once quiet Nile cruise ships are now packed with the first generation of mainland Chinese ever to leave that country as tourists with a degree of economic freedom. By the end of the decade, it’s predicted that the Chinese will be the single largest tourist group visiting Europe and the UK. Among them in the museum, were half a dozen or so of what I can only guess were circus gymnasts, delicate-looking teenage girls in bright green tracksuits who were chasing each other around the grounds taking photos, almost floating over obstacles outside the museum, such as statues in a display of grace and agility that you only see in films like “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.”

The Monday Evening Standard produced a map showing the London Underground stations where one is most likely to be stabbed or robbed or both. South Croydon and Clapham come top and most Londoners should be able to guess the top five, which must be comforting for anyone commuting home in that direction.

A quick look at the statistics for this website shows me that visits have soared over the last seven days and even Sunday, which is normally quiet, very nearly set a new record on its own. I’m delighted to see so many people becoming involved in the comment threads, if it’s to express disagreement with what I might write. Let me just add that if I’m not more than a little provocative, then nobody will visit ThanetLife, so you should always consider anything you see here as written with a mildly ‘Tongue in cheek’ style to test the waters of public opinion on different subjects, whether it be the argument over the future of the Turner Contemporary or the equally emotive subject of Political Correctness.

Detectives have launched an investigation after reports of a serious sexual assault on an 18-year-old woman in a public park.

Police cordoned off Ellington Park in Ramsgate as a forensic unit searched the area. The assault occurred in the early hours of Sunday.

Police have appealed for anyone who was in the vicinity at the time to contact them if they spotted anyone acting suspiciously.

The park is located between the town centre and the railway station. Anyone with information is asked to telephone 01843 231055.

A wonderful story from The Times today, that new Government guidelines will tell owners exactly how they must care for their pets

Reportedly, cats, dogs and other family pets are to have five statutory “freedoms” enshrined in law — and owners who flout the regulations could face jail or a fine of up to £5,000 after a visit from the “pet police”.



Margaret Beckett, the Environment Secretary, is to produce detailed codes of conduct telling pet owners how to feed their animals and where they should go to the toilet, along with ways of providing “mental stimulation”. Owners of “sociable” pets should provide them with playmates, the codes will say.

The 18-page A4 document, drafted for MPs scrutinising the Bill, warns cat owners of the dangers of dogs. It reads: “Dogs should be introduced to cats very carefully. The dog should be on a lead at first so that it cannot chase the cat.”

To be honest, I’m less worried about cats than I am about Iran and it’s nuclear ambitions. I think it’s rather clear to everyone that in invading Iraq, we chose the wrong country to chastise in our search for weapons of mass destruction and I believe that if Tehran builds a bomb, then it will most likely try or threaten to use it against Israel or indeed anyone who might threaten its interest in the surrounding geography of the middle-eastern oilfields.

I’m actually in that direction next month and I’ll be most interested in the opinion of its closest neighbouring governments. A crisis of the kind I describe will push oil prices through the ceiling and could easily trigger the kind of recession that the West hasn’t seen since the OPEC battles of the early seventies. Worse still, Israel will most likely make some kind of pre-emptive strike before the risk becomes too great for its own population.

Europe will continue to mutter and talk of sanctions while the US, bogged-down in Iraq, would hesitate to consider any question of employing troops against seventy million Iranians. That rather leaves Iran with the inevitability of a bomb within a year I suspect, unless it pulls back from its policy of brinkmanship, which it has not showed any signs of doing yet.

I wrote a story on Iran for The Economist magazine about two years ago, when I interviewed President Khatemi’s personal envoy. A fascinating country with generous people and enormous potential, mired in the introspection of political fundamentalism.

“Best leave your handbag at home”, the advice I had to pass on from a lady who recently had her wallet stolen while shopping in Primark in Margate.

This is allegedly the work of “Roma gangs”, working in family groups, she was told by the police. Apparently, the group concerned had been “Working” Margate High Street that day.

What does a ‘Roma Gang’ look like? I’m not allowed to offer a description but I’m sure you have a good idea and I’ve provided an historical link for anyone who may be interested. in the history of the much-persecuted Roma people. A quick trawl through the web shows that such organised criminal gangs are the scourge of Southern Europe but have moved North in recent years, lured by the opportunities to be found in our more generous welfare society.

Council tax inspectors are to visit the US Disney World at public expense as part of a globe-trotting itinerary to learn about increasing bills for homeowners.

At the resort, the British ”team” will give a seminar on the forthcoming council tax revaluation in England - in which homeowners will face higher bills if they have extra bedrooms, big gardens or even a nice view.

Inspectors will also learn how information on private homes in the UK may be "sold on" by the Government to private companies for profit.

Inspectors have been offered special trips to Disney World and a dedicated website has been set up to allow them to pre-book tickets for the theme park.

One of the key tools of the exercise is expected to be "spy in the sky" aerial photographs to check whether a property has recently been converted, adding to its value. This rather makes me wonder when the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister will start downloading the hundred of aerial photos I have taken of Thanet. When everyone’s back from Disney World I assume!

Reader Helen Jezequel writes:

“Hello, I am one of a small group of people who is organising a walking festival in May 2006. Would it be possible to list this on your site please and link though to our website?"

Taking place between Sunday 7th May and Saturday 13th May, the Thanet Walking Festival is now in its fourth year and brings together in one week the most popular Thanet walks from the White Cliffs Ramblers Association regular walking programme, 'Walk & Talk' health walks and the special interest town walks provided by local civic and historical societies.

Ed: No problem Helen and the same applies to anyone else with news of local activities to publicise.

Public enemy #1 having been caught in a hurry by a mobile speed camera along the Shottendane road has decided to share their positions, for those of you who don’t know where they are already.

Unfortunately, the trouble with the mobile ones is that they keep moving them around to catch the boy racers like me and anyone else going over 30mph in a rocket-powered shopping trolley.

In her Thanet Gazette column today, Jane Wenham Jones’ comments: “Let’s face it, your average local authority can barely run a bath let alone a commercial venture” and in a second remark she describes one of our local councillor as an “Old duffer”, leaving enough scorn for other “Old duffers” at Pierremont Park planning meeting.

A grand old age should bring with it considerable experience of the world and with it, respect. In local politics however, this position is frequently an excuse to hang on to influence, well beyond one’s sell-by-date. This is, I believe, the nature of the problem we are experiencing in Thanet, a frozen political morbidity that delivers limited value and even less confidence to the electorate.

We should be asking ourselves whether as a community, we can afford to have decisions made on our behalf by elected representatives who are in constant danger of dozing off in the middle of an argument. I don’t doubt that many of our councillors have given great service over the years but this is the 21st century and Thanet faces immediate and pressing challenges over the changing face of the island its population and its long term future.

If any councillor is not able to use the internet as easily as he or she can read the local paper or change channels on a television, then perhaps it’s time to leave and make way for a younger generation of local politicians. At next year’s local council elections I intend to remind local people that a brighter future for Thanet may lie in the hands of new local politicians under the retirement age of 65 . If we can’t find any then we should be asking why politics on the island has stagnated to the point that younger people in their forties and fifties might not wish to be involved or indeed, feel excluded.

And if Thanet Life is still around next year and growing as quickly as it is today, then I plan to use it as a platform to support anyone with energy and new ideas, regardless of political affiliation, who may think that he or she can make a difference, doesn’t have local party support and would like to try for a council seat. Thanet needs change, it needs a vision and it needs political representatives it can believe in and trust with its future and I hope here is somewhere for it to start.

Given that I have written very little over the last 24 hours, I’m surprised to see so much traffic coming this way, unless it’s because people are wondering why I haven’t written anything and are coming back to have a look, just in case I do.

To be honest, I’m up to my neck in work at the moment, so you’ll have to forgive me if site content here is a little thinner than usual. I’m at the hectic stage of planning this year’s eCrime Congress in March and my role as the programme director has me acting as a kind of ringmaster with a group of people who are hard to find at the best of times. As a result, I have to pull together, the diaries of the head of the Met and National Crime Squad, the FBI’s Cybercrime Unit, the lad who created the £Million home page, the Chief Security officers of the RAF, eBay, Skype and Amazon and about a dozen more of the same, all of which leaves me a little frazzled.

I just had another note from Virgin Atlantic, giving a yellow light for the Virgin GlobalFlyer, round the world trip which will finish at Manston on Tuesday if the weather is favourable. This will be one of the biggest media events ever to descend on us here when it happens, so make sure you get a good seat around the airport to watch.

Not much to put up today as I’m just in from Westminster, having witnessed the implosion of the Liberal Democrats as a force in British Politics. Lots of tasteless jokes in circulation as you can imagine... “Don’t let the **** get you down” and “In the Liberal party, it’s best to keep your back against the wall.”

Now it’s a question of who picks up the tattered remains of the party in the years before the next election unless there’s some kind of miraculous resurrection. All this twenty-five years after the birth of the SDP, for which so many people, including me, as a speech writer for David Owen, had such high hopes.

It does seem a rather long time ago... in politics that is!

I’ve just had an email from the team at Virgin Atlantic regarding the attempt to fly the Global Flyer aircraft with pilot Steve Fosset across the Atlantic to land at Manston.

They write:

“We are hopeful that everything will come together for the start of the Ultimate Flight between January 31 and February 2, therefore we are Code Yellow at present for these dates.

The picture should hopefully be clearer tomorrow when we will update everyone again. Steve will not rule out 31 January at this stage but a take off on this date would be unlikely based on current weather predictions.
For your information 1 February is looking like the most favourable weather conditions for the attempt at present.

When we have more confidence in an exact launch date, we will declare a Code Green.”

Ed: Late news. The Chinese have stuck the proverbial two fingers up at mission as they have done at just about every other record-breaking attempt I can think of. The recorded message from Beijing says: "Very sorry, not possible to fly during Chinese New Year. Please try again later."

Thanet District Council leader Sandy Ezekiel has confirmed a new initiative to market Thanet`s potential in a plan that could see £500million spent in the next twenty years.



In a report from the Isle of Thanet Extra, Ezekiel said: "We are determined to bring the 'wow' factor into Thanet the area has excellent potential and I am sure that continued sustained efforts will bring results."

Cllr Ezekiel, who is "aware such optimism and confidence will attract cynical responses", added: "I want businesses and residents to believe we can achieve great things."

He said the council is working with the private sector, Kent County Council, the South East England Development Agency and the Government Office for the South East to help realise the dream.

"Exciting and different projects" are planned for Margate seafront but Cllr Ezekiel would not be drawn into firm details "until I am sure they will definitely go ahead".

He believes Margate has tremendous scope and said the council is in discussion with the owners of Arlington House tower block to upgrade it and the arcade beneath.

Dreamland amusement park features high on the Margate masterplan and Cllr Ezekiel is adamant that the Scenic Railway roller coaster will remain as the centrepiece of "a new and exciting leisure facility".

He also hopes the railway station concourse will be upgraded to provide a fitting entrance to the town for visitors, and that the Lido area of Cliftonville can be improved as a leisure facility, possibly with a hotel and residential development.

Thanet's strong heritage will be mirrored in developments across the island and the idea is to attract more money into town centres.

Meanwhile, a traffic impact study is being carried out now by the district council with specialist firms to assess the island's transport infrastructure.

With the development of the airport at Manston, the port at Ramsgate and the centre island retail complex at Westwood Cross, Cllr Ezekiel believes Thanet has "a great potential for an exciting 2006 and beyond".

Thanet's Home Safety Road Show has proved so successful and popular with local pensioner groups that it’s going to be run again.

The initiative, devised by Watch Liaison Officer Terry McCormick, focuses on preventing doorstep crime and house fires.

The one-hour presentation, given by Mr McCormick and a Community Fire Safety Officer, includes time for audience questions.

Those taking part in the road show also have the opportunity to arrange for security and fire safety items to be fitted in their homes free of charge.

Kent Fire and Rescue Service also offers a free fire safety check of homes.

Mr McCormick said that recent police statistics indicated that although Thanet had the largest pensioner population in the county, it also had a low number of pensioner victims of burglary.

It is believed that the education programme provided by the Home Safety Road Show, incorporating Help the Aged's Senior Safety programme, is a significant factor in this achievement, he said.

“Since starting this project the road show has been presented to nearly 2500 Thanet pensioners. As a result many have had security items and smoke alarms provided and fitted for free.

“There were 24 road shows throughout last year and 100 percent of those attending felt safer in their homes after our talk. Reducing fear and providing confidence to deal with situations is a key element of the road show.”

Thanet Fire Safety Officer Paul Havens said: “Through this partnership, we have enjoyed a very proactive year with the police in Thanet and have reached over 500 Thanet residents with the road show.

“Nearly all found the presentations very useful and everyone stated it had improved their peace of mind in relation to perceived safety at home.”

Bookings for the Home Safety Road Show are currently being taken for 2006 and future presentations will include input from Kent Trading Standards on rogue traders.

To book a road show for your group call Terry McCormick at Margate Police Station on (01843) 222 176.

Kent Online reports that 2005 results for pupils at The Ramsgate School in last summer’s GCSE examinations are missing from the Government league tables.

Information about how Year 11 fared and the school’s other performance indicators are not included.

The Ramsgate School announced last year that a four-term blitz by a hand-picked team of education trouble-shooters had successfully pulled it out of the doldrums and forecasted expected improved results in the 2005 summer exams.



This followed special measures imposed by the Government after Ofsted inspectors rated it as a failing school. It consistently appeared at the foot, or near it, of the league tables.

Although The Ramsgate School officially closed in July to be replaced by the Marlowe Academy on the same site at Stirling Way, Newington, since last September - the £30 million adjoining complex opens this September - The Ramsgate School did exist when students sat their GCSe exams. Staff and students from The Ramsgate School now form a large part of the Academy.

According to thenew report on the Kent Online website, Senior teachers across Thanet, who do not wish to be named, have questioned the lack of information regarding The Ramsgate School and whether the league tables released last week give an accurate snapshot of the island's all-round educational performance last summer when the exams were sat.

When Kent County Council was asked for comment, a spokeswoman said that their officers have not been told the results either and suggested contacting the Department for Education and Skills.

A spokeswoman for the Department for Education and Skills said that if a school is no longer open then the results will not appear on the league tables.

"Our responsibility via the league tables is to give parents information upon which they can consider options offered by their local schools. The Marlowe Academy results will be included in the tables next year.

"Tables are just one way that parents have of measuring the performance of a school - other information is included in the prospectus, one their websites and through Osfsted reports, for example.

"Information has not been withheld - if the school is not open, then the results will not be published."

New research from the Halifax and the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) claims that almost two-thirds of people with detached houses will now fall into the inheritance tax trap - meaning their estate would pay a 40 per cent higher tax rate when they die, even though they may never have been a high rate taxpayer in life.

Where ten years ago, people owning their own properties received £2.6 billion in help from the Government in terms of income support and mortgage interest tax relief. Now, home-owners are presently net contributors to the Treasury, paying £7.5 billion in inheritance tax and stamp duty. Home-owners are today on average £550 a year worse-off because of government tax policies.

I’ve just come from a small get-together at the Powell Arms in Birchington, which included my fellow Gazette columnist Ewan Cameron and four of our local councillors.

While we were there, I couldn’t help but notice the number of “Hoodies”, teenage boys congregating on the square, darting about and playing football across the mini roundabout that marks the entrance to the village.

What happens next I wondered and was pleasantly surprised to see a police car with two officers appear and stop outside the pub, one of them leaving the car to talk to the group of teenagers, dressed in their thin tracksuits in what was by now a temperature below freezing.

I asked one of the bar staff if this happened much. The police presence I was told is the exception rather than the rule and apparently the kids will often greet a passing police car with welcoming shouts of “oink oink pigs pigs.” The police it seems rarely stop unless they really have to.

After the near fatal assault in Minnis Bay last month, I was told that the hoodies had been less visible but now, they are building-up their confidence again and new trouble is most likely brewing.

I should add that you need to know what I'm writing about in the context of recent local problems and that the teenagers in the square tonight were not causing any particular crime beyond the reckless use of a football. However it’s their presence and unruliness which is intimidating local people. Thanks to the criminal justice system they are almost ‘bullet-proof’ and they know it, which doesn’t inspire an atmosphere of confidence in the local community, which will very soon, I’m told, will have it’s policing directed from Canterbury.

But if these lads are causing a consistent nuisance and I’m assuming the police are on first name terms with them, then isn’t this one of the reasons that government gave for the creation of ASBOS? Prevent certain known groups of teenagers gathering outside the Powell Arms or do the police prefer to have them occasionally running amok there rather than somewhere else where they can’t see them.

I’m sure one of our Birchington readers or perhaps an anonymous member of the police can tell us more about this. I was just lucky enough to be around to see it all happening for myself tonight.

I was comfortably settled watching last week’s ‘Money Programme’ on the subject of Google and its business, when the phone rang. To my surprise it was the BBC, News, who wanted me to come into the studio to discuss Google’s defiant refusal to surrender a week’s worth of its search records to Uncle Sam, who wished to know if an analysis of the same would support the resurrection of some Clinton-era anti-pornography legislation.



It was the same day, strangely enough, that I installed the Google Desktop on my Personal Computer, the same one I warned PC users to avoid last year for personal security reasons when it first appeared. This is not to say that I’m vindicating the Google Desktop, I’m not but I’m prepared to balance the security risks against its more general utility, now the well-publicized post-launch bugs have been ironed out. In fact, I now assume by default, that my computer behavior is likely to be tracked at some unspecified level of granularity by someone and should government be particularly interested in my visits to Al Jazeera or BathtimeBabes.com, then Big Brother is going to find out, regardless of how hard the owners of the search data try and resist the inevitable.

1984, one might argue, has finally arrived, 22 years late and ironically, it’s Google that may yet find itself forced into the position of playing Big Brother, dancing to the tune of governments that like those of China and America, would rather like to know more about the surfing habits of its citizens.

In his book, ‘Code and other laws of cyberspace’, written during the commercial genesis of the internet, law professor, Lawrence Lessig argued that the ungoverned virtual world of the internet, would find it impossible to avoid the introduction of an ‘architecture of control’ as government and business attempted to mitigate and manage the risks that accompanied the sudden opening of a Pandora’s Box of new freedoms and individual expression on a par with the introduction of the printed books and pamphlets that fuelled the Reformation of 16th century Europe.

Next month, I’m speaking at a pan-Arab government conference, a part of the world where the rapid growth of the internet increasingly supports the concept of the ‘Umma’, a universal, Islamic community that dissolves the frontiers between the lands of the faithful and the non-believers and where the authority of the Sharia and fatwa system can now be experienced through the websites of respected religious figures in Saudi Arabia, Iraq or Iran.

Concealed within this rapidly expanding online community and through weblogs like the Saudi-based Religious Policeman , an often dissident and young online population can express itself on a multitude of websites that threaten the finely-balanced political status of a number of regimes. What will happen, I ask, if one day, instead of 1% of the population of the greater Arab World, 40% suddenly have access to the internet and find their imagination and growing transnational sense of identity, harnessed and centrally directed by the ideas they may find on the Web?

This is of course why governments of the free world and the not so free world want to place the equivalent of CCTV and speed cameras across the front door of cyberspace which increasingly means Google and a handful of other global portal sites; in much the same manner as the new camera on the only road in and out of Birchington captures the vehicles details of all the passing traffic.

Surveillance of the roads is a fact of life that we now take for granted in the increasingly Orwellian Britain of the 21st century and although companies like Google may seek to challenge a government’s right to internet traffic information, the very existence of such data makes such fishing expeditions unavoidable and over time, government(s), playing the national security card, will prevail and the web will become as much an integral part of the global surveillance society, as the camera now innocuously sited on the A228. “Big brother”, as George Orwell wrote, “Is watching you.”

There seems to be a nasty flu-type virus “doing the rounds” at present. The symptoms in adults are a vicious cough which refuses to go, even after a week and in children, it’s the cough plus a very high temperature. If you’re a parent, and I just had a telephone conversation with our local GP, the advice is to treat the fever and keep the child comfortable with plenty of fluids. You probably know it’s sweeping through the primary schools and it can knock a youngster of its feet for several days. I suspect it’s something we’ve seen before, as it touched me yesterday but I’m through it now, suggesting that I built up an immunity once upon a time in the past.

And now for the bad news. Kent Online reports that council taxpayers in Kent face an increase in their bills of 4.75 per cent this year - twice the rate of inflation.

Kent County Council, which accounts for the largest slice of the council tax, has proposed spending plans that will see average bills rising by £41 to £918 for those in homes in Band D.

The largest number of council taxpayers in Kent live in Band C homes and for them, bills will rise to £816, the equivalent of an additional 73 pence a week.

County Hall’s Conservative leaders say that while the rise is higher than they would have liked, their £1.3billion budget will safeguard key services and no jobs will be lost.

KCC says it has also managed to pare back spending on administration to save £35million and has set out plans to save a further £30million between now and 2008.

KCC’s budget will be agreed at a meeting in February. District and borough councils are expected to confirm their budgets in the newt few weeks. Full details of KCC’s plans can be seen at www.kent.gov.uk

One hundred million people worldwide watched the attempt to rescue the Thames whale on TV and an equal number of traffic wardens descended on the cars and vans of the British Diver Rescue team at Westminster Bridge, while they were in the water doing their job.

“Look mate, I don’t care if your’e rescuing a whale or a haddock come that, your meter has expired and that’s that!”

The group's chairman, Alan Knight, lamented: "It upsets me a bit that we are facing over £300 worth of bills. I guess they have got a job to do. However, all of our cars have 'marine ambulance' on the side or 'marine medics'... and I would have hoped they would have given us the benefit of the doubt."

No chance. The rescuers now face a £5k bill for their failed operation. I wonder if they paid their congestion charge, if not Capita may yet set the bailiffs on them.

You might have thought that the Ken the Mayor would have let them off! No votes in whales though.

Detectives are seeking the public’s assistance to help catch a mugger who has been stealing handbags from women in Cliftonville.

Officers believe the same man is responsible for the two robberies and a theft, which have all happened in the area of Tesco Metro, Pinkies Restaurant and Laleham School on Northdown Road.



During the theft on 6 January, the 74-year-old victim was at the junction of Northdown Road and Devonshire Gardens heading to Tesco Metro about 4.45pm when a man came up behind her and snatched her three-wheeled tartan shopping trolley, containing her handbag and cash.

The man then ran off, either through the alleyway running alongside Laleham School or along Northumberland Avenue.

The victim was not injured during the incident and the trolley has since been recovered.

In the second incident about 12.15pm on 13 January, an 18-year-old woman was walking along Northdown Road past Pinkies Restaurant when the man came from behind her, grabbed her shoulder bag and tried to pull it away from her.

The woman held onto the bag and during the struggle the man head butted her, causing grazing to her face. The woman fell to the ground but continued to hold onto her bag until the strap snapped, leaving the man with the bag. He then ran off toward the shops on Northdown Road.

Among the items inside the bag were the woman’s keys and money.

During the third incident about 12.30pm on 14 January, the 64-year-old victim was making her way home from Tesco Metro via the alleyway next to Laleham School when a man came from behind and pushed her to the ground.

The man grabbed her shopping trolley and tried to throw it over a large black gate that goes into the school, however the bag came free from the wheel section.

Navy sonar and military explosions have been blamed for disorientating the bottlenose whale that died on Saturday after two days in the Thames.

“Did the Qinetiq operated ranges at Shoeburyness contribute to the death of the Thames whale?”

That is the question being posed by North Thanet`s MP, Roger Gale.

For years the MP`s constituents living along the North Kent coast and most particularly in Herne Bay have complained of the damage to buildings, distress to animals and environmental intrusion caused by the shockwaves arising from the demolition of high explosives at the MoD ranges operated by QinetiQ at Shoeburyness and on Foulness Island in Essex.

"During the past week the Kent coastline has been rocked by a vicious series of explosions" says the MP "and this has led to a flood of complaints resulting in my own representations, once again, to the contractors and to the Minister’s private office.”

“We understand that one or more whales were seen off Southend on Tuesday, when the explosions shaking the Thames estuary were particularly bad. It is not unreasonable to consider that animals whose navigation systems are dependent upon highly sensitive sonar may have become disorientated by the explosions and I hope that this factor will be taken into account during any post mortem on the poor animal that has died."

The MP, who is President of the Conservative Animal Welfare Group, adds:

"We understand the necessity to test munitions and to train engineers in the destruction of explosives but we have long held that this location, in the heart of a densely populated area, is now unsuitable and that the work should be transferred to a more remote location. The harm to the daily lives of people and their domestic animals and property is a matter of record but this is the first time, to my knowledge, that we have had to recognise the potential damage to wildlife and to endangered species such as these marine mammals. This is not "bunny hugging hysteria". It is a matter that does need to be treated with serious attention.”

The parking ticket scandal, particularly in London, is something I have direct experience of. Three years ago, in Westminster, My motorcycle was ticketed on two consecutive days on private property and only because I happened to carry a digital camera with me and could record the incident, was I able to see the fines, dismissed on appeal. It was of course my word against that of one of the legions of refugees in uniform that now work for the London councils.

The Telegraph reports that town halls across the country are illegally using motorists as a cash cow by flouting government guidelines and turning parking control into a money-making business.

While the biggest problems are in London - where local authorities have been responsible for parking control since 1994 - motorists elsewhere are now starting to face similar treatment and perhaps you recall the incident in Canterbury, two years or so ago when the circus was in town and the surrounding parking was re-zoned overnight, catching out hundreds of people.

I see that the florists opposite the cinema in Westgate are yet another victim of the shop windows smashers. The police were still there as I was walking past and the front windows was being boarded-up. I suppose it happened on Saturday night and joins three of its neighbours in having windows smashed in recent times.

Will it take every shop window in Westgate and Birchington to be smashed before we see an end to this wave of vandalism or will the shop-keepers only repair one before another is smashed, days, weeks or months later, possibly by the same person or persons?

When will this stop I wonder, like another garden wall I see knocked-down on my walk this morning. As a community, we seem very short of answers or is this simply representative of life in general in today’s ‘Little Britain’? Is this really what we have come to expect, a random but constant background of vandalism, violence and petty crime without end?

All of us know what an alcoholic is but I’m struggling to find a definition for “Rent-boy” in the dictionary. Both however appear to have some vague connection with British politics and the Liberal Democrats this weekend in a scandal that takes us back to the Jeremy Thorpe debacle in the early seventies, involving a Norman Scott and Andrew 'Gino' Newton. I cannot comment any further on this, as to do so would risk a visit from the police under new legislation which forbids any of us to comment on another person’s sexual orientation or preference.

Anyway what happened to the Liberal Party under Thorpe looks set to repeat itself, probably under the leadership of Sir Menzies (Ming) Campbell, who did some neat dodging around Adam Boulton’s questions this morning over he and a “Gang of Scottish Labour Politicians”, influencing the direction of English Parliamentary legislation when our MP’s can’t vote over Scottish affairs.

Whichever way you look at it though, the Liberals are b*****d politically by the antics of the last month and now the question is who is most likely to gain, the born-again Conservatives or the Tony and Gordon pony show. Unfortunately, ‘who cares’ is the attitude of the greater population and I can quite understand why!

I was wrong in my estimation of jobless figures last week. The Sunday Times has been looking at the problem and apparently, the number of “economically inactive” people of working age has risen 25,000 to 7.94m, the highest since comparable records began in 1971.

“There are many reasons”, it reports, “for the rise in economic inactivity. It is a direct consequence of higher staying-on rates in schools and higher university participation — 1.85m of the inactive are students, no joke intended. It is also a reflection of past policies designed to massage down the jobless numbers for political reasons.”

“It includes early retirees (0.6m), and the long-term sick (2.1m). Many of the inactive (2.3m) — and they would dispute this label — are looking after family and home. In all, three-quarters of the inactive say they are not seeking work.”

“But that leaves just over 2m who say they are. Add that to the 1.5m counted as unemployed and you end up with what John Philpott, chief economist at the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, characterises as “underlying joblessness” of 3.5m.

If that isn’t bad enough, the consequences of the government’s extravagance on spending, and the accompanying increase in the tax burden, are coming home to roost. A decade ago, the tax burden in Britain was decisively lower than in Germany. Measured as a share of gross domestic product, it was — at 38% — close to the average of the generally more successful English-speaking “Anglo-Saxon” economies, and within sight of low-tax America.

But this year, says the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Britain’s tax burden will be 42.4%, higher than Germany’s 42.1% and well above America, which has come down to 32.7%.

Examine the problem in any way you like and you are left with the conclusion that when Tony Blair quits, probably in the next two years. Gordon Brown will be left with a crippled economy and a bed-ridden NHS and Education system, with more than a quarter of the money raised from council tax going to fund "gold-plated" public sector pensions.

Anne Finch of Westgate writes:

“I wonder if many of the Thanet life readers have investigated their origins, on the new website linked to the study, by surname to the area they originated from in 1881. It is very interesting the site is http://www.spatial-literacy.org/

It examined the distribution of 25,000 surnames in the 1998 electoral roll and compared them with the 1881 census to chart how people have moved around the country.

The study- paid for by the Government-Funded Economic and Social Research Council also highlighted immigration patterns.

The name Patel which did not appear at all in the 1881 census is now the 40th most common UK surname. There are 80,000 with the highest concentration in Harrow, North-West London.

It is very interesting, I thought my family originated from another part of the country, but I was wrong apparently.”

Ed: I see what you mean Anne. The 1881 census confirms what I knew about the origins of my own family surname in the Lancashire area, which you can see on the map with purple, followed by red as the hotspots. Apparently there were three fewer of us in 1998 than there were in 1881.

The results of the maths exercise on the true cost of losing Kent police as a stand-alone force are starting to creep out.

According to official sources, the costs of amalgamation could leave taxpayers in the South East picking up a bill for about £60million, spread over ten years or roughly the same amount Kent taxpayers currently contribute via council tax towards the force’s yearly budget of £340million.

Every one per cent extra on the police share of the council tax generates about £700,000 and so if Kent police was forced to raise an additional £6million from taxpayers each year, it would translate as an 8.5 per cent increase on our community charge, half of which would be spent on new computer systems and as somewhat of an authority on the subject of public sector computing, I would be inclined to add a further 50% contingency to this figure, based on good precedent.

One good reason for a merger is the search for efficiency, because the different police forces or should I say services, vary wildly in their performance and ability to deliver a service to the community. Some are so bad that their results are pitiful and the costs of policing to the public are now quite outrageous.

A second reason for seeking an amalgamation, is that “The wheels are falling off” the criminal justice system in its fight against Serious and Organised Crime but there's far too much to write about this than I have room here.

I’m looking for a volunteer or volunteers to help clean a working Cessna 172 regularly.

This would suit a responsible and intelligent teenager, a potential pilot perhaps, minimum age sixteen, who would like to earn flying time and experience against aircraft cleaning which is hard work. Someone with at least a bicycle, living between Westgate and Herne Bay would be most suited distance-wise, as I frequently cycle rather than drive to the airfield for the exercise.

Someone enterprising enough who does a good job might even start a small business with the other aircraft owners, where the pilots are often to busy to keep them clean on a regular basis.

Anyone interested, please use the email link at the bottom of the sidebar.

Casting around the news this morning, I see that search-engine-giant; Google is defying a request by the US government to hand over data revealing what its users are searching for online. The Bush administration wants a list of requests entered into Google's online search engine in an unspecified single week. It also wants one million randomly selected web addresses from Google's databases.

There was an interesting BBC Money Programme on Google on Friday evening and as I was watching it, the phone rang and to my surprise, it was the BBC, attempting to drag me into the news studio to discuss the same story. Unfortunately for the “Beeb”, I was entirely comfortable where I was, on the sofa and they had obviously not updated their own records for the last three years, because they still believe I live in Wimbledon.

I plan to write a longer story on this subject for my silicon.com column, probably on the train to London on Monday but in a nutshell, the US administration wants an excuse to re-introduce Clinton-era anti-pornography legislation and they believe that a week’s records from all the search engines, not just Google, will support this effort. I suspect they are right. As a Director of one of the first Internet Service Providers in the nineties, (bought by Easynet) over 60% of our Web-traffic was sex-related and when I suggested blocking some of the nastier Alt.binary sites at the time for moral reasons, I was outvoted or the simple reason that there were no legal grounds for such an action and that if we prevented the perverts reaching their destinations on our servers, they would simply switch ISPs.

Just remember that everything you search for is linked somewhere to the unique IP address of your computer, which is exactly why governments would like these records, whether they be Chinese, British or American.

You may remember me writing in the Thanet Gazette last month and warning over soaring energy prices and the Iran effect. Well Iran says it has started withdrawing its money from European banks in preparation for the possibility of economic sanctions over its nuclear programme.

It also hinted at economic retaliation as it agitated for a cut in crude production by the OPEC oil cartel, helping to drive up the price of oil.

Western countries are pushing for Iran to be referred to the UN Security Council, where it could ultimately face economic sanctions, because of fears that Teheran is trying to build a nuclear weapon.

I doubt very much if China will support any action against it’s oil partner in the UN, which leaves everyone else “Stuffed”, when it comes to doing anything to avoid the risk of Israel dropping a nuclear bomb on Tehran before the Iranians carry out their President’s threat to “Remove the State of Israel from the Map.” This uncertainty will keep the stock markets nervous and will inevitably drive up the price of oil and our own fuel in the months ahead. As a consequence, higher petrol prices (gas and electricity too) will impact our own economy as families have less to spend on other items. Time to start saving against a rainy day I suggest.

Finally I note that even the walls of a Roman Catholic school are no longer a defense against the barbarian hordes of ‘Hoodies’, when this week in Colchester, a gang of pupils from a neighboring Comprehensive, raided St Benedict's RC College to attack a boy in one of the classes and badly beat the Geography teacher who attempted to defend the lad, causing him to be rushed to hospital in an ambulance.

With the incident captured on other students’ camerphones, nine boys were subsequently arrested and bailed from an unnamed local school but what will happen to them, very little or nothing I suspect community service at worst because they are under eighteen. What kind of message does this send out I wonder?

Snapped this afternoon, a Bumble Bee sunning himself in my garden, which rather took me by surprise, as it’s still January but perhaps the bee doesn’t know this.

A sign of global warming perhaps and I hope, for the bee's sake, that the Russian winter, now touching -60c in parts of the country, stays where it is and doesn’t come this way.

To change the subject completely, democracy in Thanet appears to be alive and well, evidenced by a public meeting on “Thanet Matters”, with a number of Councillors present, to discuss and answer questions in Broadstairs.

This will take place on Monday evening at 6.30pm for 7pm at Charles Dickens School, Broadstairs refreshments provided. I’ll certainly try and attend if I’m back from London in time. If not, then will some kind person please volunteer a report back to me to publish here.

Don't forget, if you want to send that special message for Valentine's Day next month, then you had better put your order in with Airads quickly - 07836 351001.

The hard part is attempting to persuade your partner to be at the right place at the right time, just as the aircraft flies overhead. One particularly romantic flight last year had us appearing over the beach near Hastings at exactly 1pm as a young man proposed to his fiancee. Fortunately, it was winter and while they were walking on the beach together, there were not many other people around, making it easy to spot the man down on one knee in the sand from the air as we popped out of the cover of the trees behind the beach at low level.



A ballpark figure for a local tow from Airads is about £200 - £275+VAT depending on where you need the banner but be quick, it's a busy day for the aerial banner pilots.

A 14-year-old boy, pulled from the sea in Joss Bay at lunchtime Wednesday died in hospital in London last night.

Members of the public retrieved the boy, who was blue and had no life signs or pulse, from the water.

Police officers and passers-by conducted chest compressions and breathed for the boy until ambulance crews arrived. After about 40 minutes of resuscitation efforts the boy regained a pulse. He was then flown to QEQM Hospital by air ambulance, but was last night transferred to Guy’s Hospital.

Witnesses had earlier seen him walking in the water; however the reason for him being in the sea is still unknown.

The boy had no identification on him, but has since been identified. He was reported missing to Kent Police about 6pm on Wednesday.

Reader David Chamberlain has a point to make about Dreamland and its future, inviting Thanet Life readers to comment and pointing out that: “Dreamland will have its future decided by Thanet Council this week.”



It has been reported in the local paper, he says, “That Toby Hunter chairman of the Margate Town Centre Development Company has stated that nothing will be decided until after a public consultation in April. Hold on, when is a decision being made, Thursday the 17th or after the public consultation in April?

“Margate Town Centre Development Company, the report states has ‘no firm plans for the site’. From what I see not only has Margate Town Centre Development Company not got any firm plans for the site, it has no plans at all apart from attracting some interest from operators to run Dreamland for the next three years and that the Fun Park will reopen this summer.”

“Last summer Dreamland was not exactly overrun with visitors and quite frankly it looks pathetic! The company we are told is also advertising in the World’s fair trade magazine to find someone to run the park. I can’t even find a website for this journal. The other plans mentioned are for a green park around the scenic railway as a central feature to provide a high quality amenity area. Whilst on the subject of the scenic railway, a protected structure, why can’t this be dismantled and moved elsewhere if its position is a problem as has been suggested in the past? It doesn’t have to be destroyed.”

“Other ideas the local authority may allow so we are told are for a convenience store, shops, some residential use and a road. The onus will be on any developer to show that an amusement park will not be viable or appropriate. Now it is not too difficult to produce a report showing that an amusement park is appropriate one way or the other? A simple play on words is enough. You may be surprised to learn that in my opinion Amusement parks like Dreamland have had their day, unlike their modern high-tech off-spring, Alton Towers, Chessington or Thorpe Park. However why not look at the following ideas:”

1. Water park as per Schlitterbahn water parks, or Alton Towers water parks


2. Visual Audio experience as at Futurscope in Poitiers, France,


3. Sealife centre and aquarium as in Blackpool. (The last two great for rainy days)


4. A huge hotel with lifestyle coaching, sport & fitness, casino, cinema, restaurant and theatre (on the scale of a hotel in Vegas) that will attract the Nouveau Rich, especially with links to three good local golf courses, Manston Airport and local ferries on the south coast.

“Nope, seems we’ll end up with convenience store, shops, some residential use and a road. I can only conclude that Margate Town Centre Development Company has no firm plans and therefore no credibility. Thanet District Council appears to lack imagination. Isn’t it time a firm of Venture Capitalists were bought in to make Margate Town Centre Development Company a reasonable offer for the Dreamland site and actually attract some serious business and money to this town. What I see at present is pathetic and very amateurish.”

There’s a great sequence in a National Geographic documentary ('Running the Distance') being shown tonight (19:00) on the Sky Adventure channel, of a miserable, exhausted and dirty wretch being interviewed with a saline re-hydration drip hanging from his arm and if you look closely enough, then beneath the stubble of a week's beard growth and layer of dried white perspiration, it’s me.

Trying to run across exotic places such as the Sahara Desert is a completely daft ambition and one look at the injuries and dehydration casualties in the hospital tent during the Marathon Des Sables is evidence enough. Try a gentle walk along the beach instead, it's less likely to bring on hallucinations.

Police have revealed the name of a man who fell to his death from the East Cliff area of Ramsgate earlier this month.

He was 45-year-old Stephen Richard Williamson who lived at Leopold Road in the town.

His body was discovered on the promenade below cliffs at Wellington Crescent on January 10. Police say his death is not suspicious.

A coroner’s inquest has been opened and adjourned

One of our readers has asked what is possibly the question of the week:

“How much will the Turner Contemporary cost the council tax payers in Thanet?”

This is a question (TC/CT=?) that may have been answered before but perhaps one of our local councillors would volunteer an explanation to put everyone’s mind to rest over the costs and any consequential impact on our own community in supporting them.

I’ve been warning about the inevitable impact of the growing Asian economy, China in particular, the source of many if not most of your cheap Christmas gifts this year. And the writing, if you care to see it, is now on the wall for a UK economy that is increasingly reliant on skilled services and is seeing manufacturing jobs dwindling to a trickle

The sharpest rise in unemployment since the last recession has boosted the number of jobless to a three-year high.

In the latest blow, the unemployment level soared by 111,000 in the three months to the end of November, the biggest such rise since August 1993.

The jobless count, on the Government’s preferred survey-based measure, reached 1.53 million, or an unemployment rate of 5 per cent. The data was among a series of gloomy signals that Britain’s jobs market has taken a decisive turn for the worse.

The number of people claiming unemployment benefits rose 7,200 to 909,000. This figure marked the eleventh consecutive month of increases — the longest run of claimant count rises since the last recession. One million unemployed isn’t so far away and remember that government muddies the real figures but shoving as many young people into further education as is possible.

Back to China then and the world's second-largest internet market, grew by 18 per cent in 2005 to 111 million. Some 8.5 per cent of the country's 1.3 billion people now have access to the Internet, as the world's technology centre of gravity starts to tilt towards Shanghai.

Time to start those Chinese language lessons I suspect.

Education is a mess and today, even the Minister, Ruth Kelly is fighting for her survival. Half the government's flagship city academies are today named among the worst-performing schools in England, in league tables published for every state and private secondary school that rank their results in last year's GCSE exams.

To date 27 academies, the controversial semi-independent schools that lie outside the state system and which have all replaced failing schools have opened, but only 14 have been open long enough for their 2005 GCSE results to be included in the rankings. Of these, seven were in the bottom 200 using the key benchmark of the proportion of pupils gaining five or more passes at grades A*-C. Less than 30% of the pupils attending these seven academies gained five C grades or better.

So with Academies sounding like a good idea but nonetheless visibly failing but allegedly worth a seat in the House of Lords if you sponsor one, Ministers went off on another tack yesterday and claimed that schools in general had made “the biggest single improvement in standards for a decade” after the proportion of students passing five good GCSEs rose by 2.6 percentage points.

As you might expect from any government release these days, this figure is also revealed by the newspapers as being deeply misleading. If English and maths are included in the five subjects measured, the pass rate is 12 points lower, at only 44.3 per cent.

This, as The Times points out, is an appalling result. It means that more than half the pupils in Britain are not achieving even a reasonable competence in the two subjects essential to future employment. To allow schools to boast an ever-higher achievement by counting any or all of the soft options as part of the core five passes is deceptive.

The importance of English is hard to overstate and I’m writing as one who used to teach English in Thanet and makes a good living from writing professionally as well as having fun writing the Weblog. Research has shown that primary school leavers who fail to achieve the expected competence at the age of 11 find it almost impossible to catch up later or to prosper in a host of other subjects which depend on mastery of the language and I’m constantly dismayed at the poor grasp of the English language I see demonstrated on a daily basis, a factor which inevitably condemns many children to a life with very limited professional horizons.

Universities have long been so frustrated by the poor grasp of basic grammar among those beginning undergraduate courses that some have sent freshmen on compulsory remedial courses. Clearly, at undergraduate level, a student who cannot grasp the structure of the medium used for all instruction is severely handicapped. Even those beginning a job at 16 need to have the confidence to express themselves precisely and correctly but their education and frequently families, through lack of support and correction, are failing them through an inverted pride in not being able to communicate “proper like” in their own language.

Councillor Clive Hart has written in with some good news for those of you who objected to the new street signs on Margate seafront. A question was asked at a KCC meeting and Cllr Ferrin has replied:

“As you will be aware, Kent Highways are carrying out a study on the amount of street signage with some focus on Margate seafront. This acknowledges the importance of reducing "sign clutter" but unfortunately was put together before the signs that you mention were erected.

My understanding is that there was a technical reason for the size of these signs. The position of the signs, on the seafront, means that they attract a significant wind loading and if foundations for such signs are not large enough they can blow over. However a significant foundation was not possible as there are a large number of cables and pipe below the footway. The designers have therefore used the large lattice columns that you have commented on. These are less susceptible to wind pressure and mean that a smaller foundation could be used.

Having said all that however I do agree that the signs do look out of proportion along the seafront and I have therefore issued and asked for an instruction to have them replaced, with signs that are more in proportion and do not detract from Margate’s character.”

Ed: A small victory for Cllr Hart and for ThanetLife too perhaps?

A reflection on social history, from a chance conversation with one of our local traders, who recently had his windows smashed by a drunk.

“I used to live in the East End”, he said and in those days, we would pay protection money to the local Godfather figure. If any drunk or teenage vandal smashed our windows then or damaged our property, justice of a kind, would be swift and hard, which is why it very rarely if ever happened.” It’s funny” he added, I pay all this money to the insurance company for business insurance, I pay extortionate business rates and I pay an equally high community charge and for all this money, nothing can be done to stop my windows being broken on a regular basis.”

Having just finished a lunchtime run along the promenade towards Birchington from Westgate, I though I might let you write the news story or caption against the two photographs that I took with my small camera phone on the way.







Just add the story to the comments and let’s see who can come up with the best description and story.

Detectives are seeking the public’s assistance to help catch a thief and robber who has been stealing handbags from women in Cliftonville.

Officers believe the same man is responsible for the two robberies and a theft, which have all happened in the area of Tesco Metro, Pinkies Restaurant and Laleham School on Northdown Road.

During the theft on 6 January, the 74-year-old victim was at the junction of Northdown Road and Devonshire Gardens heading to Tesco Metro about 4.45pm when a man came up behind her and snatched her three-wheeled tartan shopping trolley, containing her handbag and cash.

The man then ran off, either through the alleyway running alongside Laleham School or along Northumberland Avenue.

The victim was not injured during the incident and the trolley has since been recovered.

In the second incident about 12.15pm on 13 January, an 18-year-old woman was walking along Northdown Road past Pinkies Restaurant when the man came from behind her, grabbed her shoulder bag and tried to pull it away from her.

The woman held onto the bag and during the struggle the man head butted her, causing grazing to her face. The woman fell to the ground but continued to hold onto her bag until the strap snapped, leaving the man with the bag. He then ran off toward the shops on Northdown Road.

Among the items inside the bag were the woman’s keys and money.

During the third incident about 12.30pm on 14 January, the 64-year-old victim was making her way home from Tesco Metro via the alleyway next to Laleham School when a man came from behind and pushed her to the ground.

The man grabbed her shopping trolley and tried to throw it over a large black gate that goes into the school, however the bag came free from the wheel section.

He then threw the wheel section over the gate and emptied the bag’s contents, including the woman’s purse, onto the footpath. He picked up the purse, climbed over the gate and ran off.

The victim was uninjured by the incident. Among the contents of the purse was the woman’s money and cash and credit cards.

The man is described as white, in his late teens or early 20s, between 5ft 10 and 6ft tall, of slim to medium build, clean-shaven with fair, cropped hair.

During the first incident he wore dark blue denim jeans and a light blue denim jacket, while on 13 January he wore a navy blue beanie, a blue and white bomber style jacket, and dark bottoms.

During the last incident he wore a beige woolly hat, a grey or silver scarf around his face, a beige anorak, dark bottoms, white trainers and beige gloves.

Detectives are advising the public to be extra vigilant in the area around the top of Northdown Road and to notify the police of any suspicious activity in the area.

Anyone who witnessed the theft and robberies or who knows the identity of the man is asked to contact DC Diane Francklin at Margate Police Station on (01843) 222 032. (ref 231, 511, 520)

GMTV postponed again today, I rather thought they might but I suspect they’ll be back. It makes much more sense to wait a couple of weeks until the mornings are much lighter before 8am. It’s curious how seemingly disorganised these daytime shows are, driven as they are by a diet of current affairs stories. Richard & Judy are no better I discovered but ironically, along comes the Arabic TV channel, Al Jazeera instead.

My good friend Stephen Cole, who presented the BBC’s Click Online programme for many years, has now been lured along to join them and I had a call today about doing a feature on identity theft from start to finish, i.e. they want someone to show them how easy it is to steal someone’s identity and apparently Stephen has pointed a finger in my direction. Who did you have in mind I wonder?

If you are confused at this point about what I do other than flying an aircraft around taking photos of Thanet and writing this weblog, then it can be awkward to explain but if you look at the Govtec site, a job I’m doing in Bahrain next month, one part of the jigsaw at least will be revealed.

Meanwhile, I was struck today by a news report on the activities of a group, sponsored by ‘Take a Break’ magazine, the Mum’s Army party, with 54 candidates standing for election and According to its editor, John Dale, a register of over 10,000 supporters.

The platform on which Mum’s Army candidates will stand is tackling the antisocial behaviour that blights local communities, and one of “Mums” on BBC South East News tonight was rather more streetwise and useful than the waste of space, Lewes councillor, who insisted that he was really active in the community in fighting anti-social behaviour and had even dressed up as Father Christmas. The BBC reporter could barely hide an expression of contempt and I feel sorry for his council colleagues, who having seen his appalling and out-of-touch performance on camera, will feel that they have been tarred with the same brush.

Given that a police presence in the villages of Thanet outside office hours appears to be more the exception than the rule, perhaps we need a mum’s army too. There’s a thought!

Broadstairs Iaido and Karate instructor, Richard Obbard has waited a lifetime to fulfil his dream of owning a custom-made sword, made for him by a traditional swordsmith in Japan.

In Japan the sword has been revered for centuries as one of the most important objects of fine craftsmanship and high art. The Japanese swordsmiths (katana kaji) of 800 years ago forged masterpieces in steel using only simple tools and a small charcoal forge – and their incredible skills in working iron and steel – to create features and structures and forms within the steel that cannot be matched today.

Richard shares the philosophy and ancient martial art of Iaido, “the way of the sword”, in a class he holds in Broadstairs every Monday evening.

Thanet police officers are seeking the public’s help to find a missing 68-year-old Margate woman who hasn’t been seen since Sunday.

Friends last saw Grace Venables about 9pm on 15 January when they left her home on King Street. They say it is unlike Grace to go missing.

Officers are also concerned for Grace’s welfare due to her age and because she recently had a heart operation, for which she needs to take medication.

Grace is 5ft 3in tall, of slim build, with fair complexion and brown hair with highlights in a bob cut.

She was last seen wearing blue trousers, a pink blouse, a green three-quarter length coat and white trainers.

Anyone who knows the whereabouts of Grace is asked to contact Kent Police on (01843) 231 055.

On the train home from London yesterday, I shared a carriage with three Russian women, two Chinese, one African and I think, an Iranian sitting opposite me. It somehow reminded me of the film, “Blade Runner”, where in a futuristic Los Angeles; even the police speak a peculiar mix of “City speak”, Chinese, Spanish and English.

Chinese or at least Mandarin is now the language to learn and if I was younger, Id’ probably try learning it myself and if it were taught in my daughter’s school, I’d be delighted.

An independent school in Brighton has become the first in the UK to make Mandarin Chinese compulsory for pupils, reflecting the growing importance of China on the world stage. But it's not an easy language to master. Firstly, the script poses problems. There is no alphabet, just thousands of characters; so many that no one can give a definitive total, but it is believed to be around 60,000.

China is now the world's fastest growing major economy and with British exports to the country expected to quadruple by the end of the decade, government wants every school, college and university to be twinned with an equivalent in China within the next five years.

An estimated 100 schools in the UK are now teaching Mandarin, China's official language but I suspect, it may be slow in coming to Thanet.

We all need to grasp the importance of China’s growth and perhaps encourage our children to think about it too, because it’s China, rather than a defunct and tottering Europe, which will increasingly define our wealth and the shape of our economy in the future and when everything one can think of can be made more cheaply over there, what on earth are we going to manufacture and add value to over here?

Playing table tennis with Microsoft’s PR agency and GMTV this afternoon on the train home from London. Last Friday GMTV had scheduled young Charlotte, now aged eleven, to go flying with one of the UK’s top professional aerobatics pilots, Denny Dobson in his Extra 300. You may have seen Denny on the Discovery Channel’s new “Rough Trades” series last night.

The idea is that GMTV film Charlotte flying the more sedate Cessna 172 and then Denny will give her a lesson and let her fly the Extra 300, probably out of Manston, the biggest challenge being an attempt to do this by 8 am; it only gets lights at 7:45 am as I explained to the PR agency. Anyway, last Friday fell through, because of weather, darkness, timings etc, so we may have another go on Wednesday or simply leave it until it gets light a little earlier. in the mornings.

Thanet's eleven year old test TV pilot has insisted that if she has to risk puling an inverted six "G" then she would rather like a Microsoft X-Box out of the deal, to which PR agency have kindly agreed under duress. The Extra is used by top aerobatic and air show performers world-wide and its abilities as a commercial dogfighting machine are second to none. The Extra is stressed to +/- 10G’s, has a roll rate of 360°/second, and a climb rate in excess of 3200 fpm making it one of the safest and most capable aircraft in the sky.

It’s an interesting reason for being late for school in the morning I suppose. I’m glad I’m not eleven!

I'm in the big city with the boys in blue today and before I go, back once again to the risk of flu again and a release by the Thanet North MP calling for the humane slaughter of birds in Turkey. It is entirely possible that H5N1 of avian flu will evolve into the cause of a pandemic. Worryingly, this flu strain has already gone through a number of variants and each time seems to have become more deadly, tougher, more easily spread and capable of attacking more species.

The 1918 “Spanish flu” killed between 50 million and 100 million people and although the 1918 outbreak is often seen as an anomaly, almost one hundred years earlier, the pandemic of 1830 to 1832 was, in fact, equally virulent.

MP Roger Gale is calling for the humane slaughter of any birds that need to be destroyed as a result of the spread of avian flu into Europe.

In a written question to the Foreign Secretary that will appear on the order paper today (Monday) for answer on Wednesday the MP asks to Government to make representations to the Turkish Government to try to ensure the humane execution of infected and associated birds.

"Some of the scenes of birds being stuffed into sacks and buried alive have been horrific" says the MP. "We all know that the potential spread of the disease is very serious and some of us have been calling for months for further preventative measures to protect farmed birds to be put into place, but if birds do have to be slaughtered then at least, in a civilised society, let it be done humanely.

I also believe that we must ensure that plans are in place to carry out not just localised but mass culling throughout the European Union should this become necessary. If plans are not in place then it is easy to foresee a truly grim situation should panic and disorganised culling take place".

Possibly thanks to a combination of both the Thanet Gazette and BBC Kent but over the last couple of days, I see the website has consistently had more new visitors than returning visitors. If you have a moment, please test-out the comments feature and let me know where you heard about it from; anonymously if you like!

This helps me track why the traffic is growing rather than how. At the present rate of growth I would expect it to pass 100,000 impressions by July or August, earlier perhaps if the current trend continues.

I’m hoping to photograph the size of the “Under construction” space between Tesco at Westwood Cross and the Canterbury Christchurch Campus this morning, as well as a few more “Planning in Progress” shots this morning. It looks to be clearing-up a little outside and so as long as there’s no cloud between me and target and the light is reasonable, I’ll put the photos up in the library – link on the sidebar. It's frequently a little tricky at this time of year as I need a relatively high shutter speed to cope with the aircraft closing speed on the target and if the light is poor, as with the attempt to photograph the lifeboat exercise a month or so ago, all I get is a blurred result.

By the way, as readers, like my hairdresser Alan at, the Razor's Edge, have asked, I can arrange hi-resolution, low-level photographs of your home on enquiry. The cost is £25.00+VAT for a simple fly-by and mutiple shots, to cover the aircraft fuel as long as it's a local job. If your'e lucky, your house may already be in the photo library; I can see that a number of people have already downloaded some of the highest resolution photos of the Thanet towns that I have there.



Footnote: You''ll see that I managed some shots of Westwood Cross (see above) in very poor light I'm afraid .Huge isn't it? Where is all the traffic going to go when that's finished I wonder! The other photo is of course the Margate "Old Town."

The BBC reports that campaigners have taken to the streets with a petition for their Kent town to be allowed its own parish council.

Ramsgate is currently represented by 17 charter trustees elected onto Thanet District Council.

But the council is conducting a parish review with local people given until 18 January to have their say on the issue.

Members of the Ramsgate First group were promoting their campaign for a town council on Saturday, trying to collect signatures for a petition.

Thanet's parish review for Ramsgate began on 6 December.

Chief executive Richard Samuel said at the time: "When a decision is made we want to ensure it takes local people's views into account."

A "yes" decision would see the Ramsgate Charter Trustees abolished after more than 30 years of existence.

A parish council would have a role to play on issues such as planning, highways and street lighting.

However, such a change would incur an extra cost for Ramsgate residents, which would be added to council tax bills. - Seven other towns in Thanet have their own parish council

It appears that Mr Blair’s single-handed attempt to boost his respect campaign by cleaning graffiti from a wall in Tothill lasted a matter of days.

In the early hours of Friday morning the yobs delivered their emphatic response: "F*** off, keep off our land Blair" - spray-painted in 3ft-high letters across a 20ft section of the wall, leading a neighbouring housewife to comment "It's a bloody farce, isn't it? A meaningless publicity stunt which won't change anything."

On Friday night alone, within yards of the same wall, one man was stabbed and another was arrested on suspicion of shoplifting.

You may like to note that if you happen to work for a large company, the size of Tesco perhaps, you may be better off if a bird flu epidemic hits our shores. (You will see from the photograph that the Spanish have a unique approach to the problem.)

Companies are reportedly trying to buy up Tamiflu, the anti-viral vaccine drug, which could reduce the symptoms of bird flu - although it would not be a cure.

BUPA, the private health company, said that 30 per cent of the companies it insures had asked for stocks of Tamiflu for their staff but it had so far been unable to satisfy demand. Many clients had also asked to be supplied with face masks.

I guess that all that’s left to the non-essential rest of us is a cup of hot Lemsip. A comforting thought.

Footage from this morning's visit to the Pat Marsh show at BBC Radio Kent in Tunbridge Wells with Lizzie and Cas

The drive to the BBC studio in Tunbridge Wells seemed to take forever this morning and it was only thanks to the new GPS – a Halfords January sale special - in my car that I managed to find the place with minutes to spare. Then it was a mad scramble back to Thanet in time for my daughter's birthday party involving a house full of girls having their nails painted and eating pizza.

I followed the GPS once again, which this time decided it would take me back to Thanet via the Danson Interchange, in the opposite direction, why I have no idea but one thing I did notice is that the GPS is having trouble keeping up with all the new roads in the South-east.




I’ve uploaded a short video clip of the segment before I was on but thanks to producer Steve McCormick (pictured below ) for inviting me and to Pat Marsh (pictured left) for having me on the programme. If you listened I hope you found it as much fun as I did.

He has to be joking. TheTelegraph reports that Gordon Brown will today call on the British people today to celebrate their patriotism and embrace the Union flag with pride as he embarks on a personal mission to reposition Labour as the party of strong national identity.

In a speech that is bound to anger some on the Labour Left, he will suggest that homeowners imitate the Americans by planting "a (Union) flag in every garden" and will float the idea of a "British day" on which uniquely British ideas and values can be celebrated.

So we have a member of the same political cabal who very nearly killed-off the Union flag altogether, as being politically incorrect, suddenly suggesting that we all erect a flagpole in our gardens. Mr Brown is of course a Scot, aand the government has increasingly relied on the Scottish vote to push through purely English legislation, against English votes, and yet the reverse is not true; English MPs have no say over comparable Scottish affairs.

This is obviously unfair, as is the fact that more taxpayers’ money goes to Scotland, per head, for public services than in England. Devolution has only made this long-standing injustice feel worse.

If this wasn’t sad and deeply cynical it would be funny but it’s not and is simply another gimmick in attempt to capture declining confidence in ‘shambolic’ politics.

Not any old paintbrush but “The Turner Paintbrush”, or the projected cost of spending £1.2 million repainting the gallery every fifteen years.

As a result, I’ve given up any idea of becoming an artist and will be applying as a jobbing painter and decorator, alongside everyone else in Thanet, once the Turner Contemporary has been built.

The campaign to save Pierremont Park figures prominently in the local paper today, as protestors fight to against plans to build a new community centre, which will destroy many of the tree in the park.

One reader writes to tell me however that: “ At last week’s site meeting, which attracted fifty protestors, the media had been alerted and Radio Kent and BBC South East News turned up, but not Meridian News as promised. That afternoon one of the protest leaders received a call from Meridian apologising for their failure to arrive, and suggested that they might like to run the event again on Saturday just for Meridian. This the protesters did, and this became a minute plus slot on Meridian on Sunday 8th January, without mention of the missed site meeting, and putting only the one side of the story, as no one had invited the pro-community centre lobby to the specially run event on Saturday! If this isn’t an example of biased media coverage, then nothing is!”

Ed: Does anyone else know any more about this and would like to comment? Incidentally, there will be a Thanet Council planning meeting to decide its future next Wednesday at 7pm at the Council Chambers in Margate.

For those of you who might like to listen, I will be pitching up on BBC Radio Kent on Saturday with presenter Pat Marsh from 12:15 pm to talk about ‘Weblogs’, Thanet life and anything else that comes up during the programme.

As mentioned in the earlier post, I’m not sure how much of a listener phone-in there is if any on the programme but I’ll do my best to be as controversial as possible! If there’s anything you think I should focus on, given the opportunity, let me know.

96.7FM, 104.2FM, 97.6FM, DAB Digital Radio and online at http://www.bbc.co.uk/kent

Thanet police officers are warning residents not to leave house keys in doors that have cat flaps after a series of burglaries where thieves have reached through and unlocked the door.

In the most recent case yesterday, thieves reached through a newly fitted cat flap in the rear door of a house on Northdown Park Road, Margate and unlocked the door by using the keys that were sitting in the lock.

The thieves then stole a laptop computer, a portable DVD player and the back door keys.

Sergeant Gordon Etheridge, of Thanet’s Crime Reduction Unit, advised residents with cat flaps to keep the keys and other property well out of reach.

“If you have a cat flap in your door, make sure you don’t leave your keys sitting in the lock or hanging nearby. Thieves are very cunning and will take such opportunities to break into your home.

“Although it’s wise to keep keys near your doors in case of a fire, if you have a cat flap keep them well out of reach and out of sight of burglars.”

Sergeant Etheridge also recommended residents not to keep any valuable property near the cat flap in case thieves decided to grab it.

“And also keep tools out of reach, as a hammer or tool box left by the door could be used grabbed by thieves reaching through the cat flap and used to force open the door.”

He reminded residents to keep their homes locked securely - double locking doors and closing all windows – and using alarms, if fitted.

A night out for four young men in Thanet can be expensive these days but according to a story in our local paper, there’s relatively cheap and risk free fun to be had stealing and wrecking people’s cars.

The paper reports that scaffolder Thomas Hembling who stole a Vauxhall Nova from Westgate in September, was chased through Manston and Shottendane Road with no license, no insurance and three friends in the car, and must pay £200 compensation to the owner of the car he wrecked.

Police attempted to stop the car with a “Stinger”, puncturing the tyres but that didn’t stop him. Hembling was banned from driving for a year (but he reportedly has no license anyway) and was fined £460 with £43 costs. None of the four were given a custodial sentence.

So let me see if I understand this correctly? You can steal a car, almost wreck it and be chased by the police at high speed along our local roads, presenting a potentially lethal danger to anyone who might cross your path, all for rather less than the cost of a day out for four at the Brands Hatch "Top Gear" experience.

This sounds like a rather good deal to me given the level of adrenalin-fuelled excitement involved in the chase and the attempt to escape the police dog at the end.

I wonder if our criminal justice system has lost its marbles completely with examples such as this one. Where I ask is the deterrent, any deterrent and the proper compensation to the person whose property has been stolen and/or damaged?

B&Q have asked if there are any local organisations, youth groups, community groups etc. who might be interested in applying for their ‘You Can Do It’ awards for 2006, worth £5000 of B&Q products for the lucky winners.

Full details can be found as from Monday 16th January on their website at:

http://www.diy.com/awards

Or applicants can ring them on 0845 300 1001 for full details and a form.
Applications must be received by Friday 17 March, 2006.

One of Thanet’s most prominent success stories, my old friend, Michael Davis-Marks has received an OBE for organising last year’s fleet review at Portsmouth.

Former commander of the Nuclear Submarine HMS Turbulent Michael was also the Naval Attaché in Washington and now works at the fleet headquarters in Portsmouth. His mother Shirley lives in Birchington.

As a choice of career, being a nuclear submarine captain is on a par with being an astronaut and there are rather less of the former. Thanet has good reason to be proud of this local success story which sets a wonderful example to all the young people now at school on the island.

If I had known, when a Navy Lynx helicopter was trying to chase me away from taking photos of the Queen’s vessel during the Trafalgar review, I might have passed a hello over the radio. Quite a coincidence and I wonder if I gave him a brief security headache. Well done Michael, it was a great show!

Two men allegedly tried to rob the attendant of a Ramsgate Road, Broadstairs garage about 6.20pm on Monday night.

One man walked around the back of the counter, pulled out a black handled kitchen knife and told the attendant that he was being robbed, while the second man stood in front of the counter.

The attendant confronted the man with the knife and told him not to be stupid as he was self-defence trained.

The two men, who were both wearing black scarves over their faces, then left the store empty handed.

The man with the knife was white, aged between 16 and 19, about 5ft 10in tall, of medium build, and wore a dark grey ‘hoody with white stripes down the sleeves and dark jeans.

The other man was white, aged between 16 and 18, about 5ft 8in tall and wore a white hoody.

Anyone who witnessed the incident or has any information is asked to contact DC Katrina Whitehead at Margate Police Station on (01843) 222 151. (ref 394)

Unless a contact number is given, anyone with information about an incident should contact the police on (01843) 222 033 or Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.

Hundreds of mourners attended the service at Margate crematorium today for schoolgirl Kelsey Murphy who died when a car driven by her brother, Aaron was in a collision with a lorry opposite the cricket club in Hartsdown road, last month.

The crematorium is very near the crash site where the railings outside the cricket club remain adorned with hundreds of floral tributes, soft toys, school ties and shirt with messages of support and sympathy written on them. Her school, Hartsdown College closed for the morning as a mark of respect.

Fund raising has been carried out at Hartsdown College for a memorial to Kelsey to be created at a date in the future once plans have been agreed upon.

A visit to the MOD Fire Museum this morning and with a tour given by its curator Brian Harris. The museum is housed in the Old RAF Fire School building within the boundary of the Ministry of Defence Fire Service Central Training Establishment at Manston.

As I wrote in an earlier post, the owner and founder of the Museum is Sgt Steve Shirley MBE, who was an instructor on the staff of the CTE and the roots of the present museum go back some twenty years when he obtained his first model fire engine.







Steve started collecting fire related items as a hobby and the collection now runs into many thousands of individual items which include a superb display of over 150 helmets from all over the world which form a large part of the Museum display of today.

The collection continued to grow in the current building as a tribute to the fire fighting Services from around the world and It was officially opened as the Ministry of Defence Fire Museum in June 1995 and was renamed the Manston Fire Museum in November 1998.

The collection, as you can see from the photos I have put up in the library today, consists of many photographs and posters on display alongside models, badges, patches, uniforms, helmets, prints, extinguishers and, of course, really serious fire fighting equipment, both military and civilian ranging from 1868 to the present day.

Many thanks to curator Brian and the RAF for showing me around and letting me photograph the aircraft parked “out the back”. School parties are welcomed by appointment.

Police were called to the promenade below Wellington Crescent at Ramsgate on Tuesday where a 45-year-old man was found dead.

Witnesses saw the man fall from the top of the cliff. Officers cordoned off the area while an investigation was carried out.

The death is not being treated as suspicious.

Next of kin have been notified, but a formal identification will not be conducted until after the post mortem on Friday. It is believed the man lived in the Thanet area.

The tragedy happened at about 3.30pm on Tuesday. The matter has now been handed over to the coroner’s office.

Personally, I believe that Education Minister Ruth Kelly should be sacked or at the very least resign over her decision to allow known and registered sex offenders teach in our schools.

Ms Kelly has been under pressure to resign following the disclosure that Paul Reeve was given a job as a PE teacher at the Hewitt School in Norwich last month despite being cautioned for accessing banned images of children on the internet and being one of thousands of ‘respectable’ people trappedby the police operation, ‘Ore’. Yesterday, it was revealed that a further 10 adults on the sex offenders register were allowed to work with children in schools……..

I’m not going to dwell on the distant past but I have known two teachers during my own early school life, who today, would have, without doubt found themselves on the register, One in particular, led to the scandal and closure of Wellington House, a popular private school in Westgate, whose cricket field is now covered in houses.

That Mr Reeve is a PE teacher is possibly more disturbing. I was one once upon a time and one activity that has to be supervised is the boys showers, which for a paedophile sex offender must be one of the goals of his activities, would reinforce his behaviour and raise the level of risk to the children under his care, as I’m sure you might agree?

For such appalling judgement and disregard of public feelings on this matter and for what appears to be a complete lack of confidence from the teaching community, Ruth Kelly, who I really feel quite sorry for, should best apply her considerable talents and charm elsewhere.

Ed: Further reading: http://www.inquisition21.com/article~view~83~page_num~3.html & http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ore

If your interests involve natural history and local wildlife, then the Planet Thanet.org website has some excellent photographs and even a video library.

It describes itself as one of Kent’s premier independent wildlife websites and in
2006 will continue with its provision of wildlife news and hopes to expand its coverage to include more of the botanical species and will incorporate any garden news within the Bird, Moth or Non-avian News pages, as relevant.

In an attempt to help visitors to Thanet, it is going to post a quarterly summary of the species likely to be seen, with locations, based upon the information provided by its contributors.

Give it a visit

I have just removed the comment thread from “Signs of the Times”, something that I don’t do lightly and with some reluctance.

I have some very simple rules for all to follow on this website; honest, decent, truthful and no personal or possibly libellous attacks or bad language. At the very least, our local councillors should be setting an example to others in terms of polite restraint and debate and it grieves me that I have had to show both a yellow card and finally a red card on this conversation thread, where others had made useful and constructive comments.

Unfortunately, to avoid having to vet every comment that appears – I have a day job too – I have left the site very open, which means that in the way its configured, if I take down one comment for a thread, I have to lose the lot.

Please play by the rules everyone and use intelligent satire rather than political acrimony.

Detectives are appealing for witnesses to the alleged attempted abduction of a 15-year-old girl as she walked along Pysons Road, Ramsgate on Monday evening.

The Broadstairs girl was walking along the footpath near the farm fields off Pysons Road between 7pm and 7.30pm when two men in a new looking, light blue car drove past, stopped and then reversed back to where she was.

The driver of the car asked the girl for directions to Ramsgate train station, which she gave them.

However, the passenger then got out of the car, took hold of the girl’s arm and pulled her towards the car, stating that she was going to get in the car and take them to the station.

The girl managed to push the man away and ran off along Pysons Road. The car then drove off toward Margate Road.

Both men are described as being of Eastern European appearance, aged between 20 and 25, of slim build, with short brown hair and stubble on their face.

Anyone who witnessed the incident or has any information is asked to contact DC Paul Gedge at Margate Police Station on (01843) 222 182. (ref 382)

Thanet Life is coming to radio this Saturday morning. Steve McCormick ,a radio producer with BBC Radio Kent (96.7FM, 104.2FM, 97.6FM) and a reader, having spent most of his school summer holidays in Seasalter as a boy, has invited me to join-in on a new mid morning show (10am till 1pm) hosted by Pat Marsh to discuss ‘blogs’ and their growing popularity and value as a local news and information resource.

There may be a phone-in part of the show but I’ll keep you updated on the details in case you might wish to listen in.

A little public service health information for parents from the doctor this morning and this covers new advice on detecting signs of meningitis following a new study that has identified the earliest symptoms.

Health advice has traditionally highlighted early warnings such as a red rash, stiff neck and sensitivity to light as indicators of the potentially fatal bacterial — and the less dangerous viral — meningitis. These “classic symptoms” can take an average of between 13 and 22 hours to develop, by which time some victims are only two hours away from being critically ill.

Parents are now warned to watch out for sepsis (leg pain), abnormally pale or mottled skin and cold hands and feet as indicators that their child may have meningitis that should be reported to their doctor and which have a high diagnostic value.”

At least four in 100,000 British children will become ill with meningococcal disease and 10 per cent of those infected die.

Bird flu continues its advance towards Europe but has still failed to make the significant jump involving human to human transfer that the World Health Organisation fears. There have been just over a hundred confirmed cases of avian flu with the H5N1 strain, in people from Indonesia, Thailand and Cambodia, which has led to 60 deaths. All the victims are thought to have been in close or direct contact with infected birds.

Updated information on the illness and advice for us here in the UK on issues such as travelling to Turkey – which sounds like a pun - is available on the NHS Direct website which should be your first port of call if it ever reaches Britain.

People could be banned from their own homes for three months for being nuisance neighbours under the President’s latest "respect agenda" proposals.

Police may also get new powers to deliver on-the-spot fines, and there would be more parenting orders with the public able to demand tougher action from local police on anti-social behaviour.

While I’m not convinced that the latest raft of measures will improve on the other feeble headline grabbing initiatives on law and order that we have seen from the government I’m encouraged by one part of The action plan which would compel police officers and council officials to hold "face the people" sessions to explain what action they were taking.

Where local people were not satisfied, they could ask new local scrutiny committees to investigate through "community calls to action”, the police and other agencies would then have a duty to respond to the committees' findings.

The trouble is that thanks in part to the rapid dissolution of the role of the nuclear family under this government, we now have a lost generation who now have very little respect for anything or anyone but know very well what their rights are. I’m not sure we can easily reconcile a zero tolerance approach to anti social behaviour on the one hand with the misguided liberalism, crumbling criminal justice system and failed social experiment that dropped us in this present mess.

I think most of us know what kind of action is most likely to stop anti-social behaviour in its tracks and it’s certainly not a fear of ASBOS, tagging or even eviction. Once upon a time the local police might have resolved an antisocial problem in the back of a van but those bad old days have gone – except in Spain and France and Italy and well just about everywhere else in Europe except Germany perhaps – and we’re surprised that a small but disproportionately active minority of troublemakers in our society show no respect.

Sixteen ministers were dispatched around the country for photo opportunities to highlight the new measures. But Mr Blair encountered some scepticism at when a police officer said the measures would work only if the Crown Prosecution Service and the courts backed them up.

The officer remarked: "Respect? They can't even spell the word. What they need is to be named and shamed.

"But then even an Asbo is a badge of honour to some of these kids."

Respect can't exist in a moral vacuum, something that politicians, now appear to have forgotten.

It’s a coincidence that I started writing about the drought yesterday and today we hear that Southern Water are being criticised for fa ailure to take proper action to deal with the problem as the situation worsens.

I did mention that from the air, Bewl Water looks as if someone has pulled the plug on the reservoir but here’s a ground level view of the problem which does little to inspire confidence for the months ahead.

Local Birchington photographer, Alex Beeston has responded to the request for readers to send in their best digital photographs of Thanet. Alex, whose website and gallery can be found here, has sent in three photos, a Sunset viewed from Minnis Bay out to Reculver, the breakwater at Minnis Bay in a sepia style and the famous life boatman statue at the Nayland Rock in Margate.

















If you have photos as well as news you would like to share with others, please send them in.

The lack of rainfall in what is very much a winter drought should start being a cause for concern. Fly over the big reservoirs in Kent and Surrey and you’ll see them gradually shrinking down to large pond size. On the pavements, the absence of rain is defined by my weaving between the dog messes on the pavement which have now been there for months. It occurs to me that the bigger the dog, the less inclined the owner is to use a purpose designed black plastic bag to collect what it leaves behind each day.

Unless it rains every day between now and the arrival of spring the year ahead is going to be a tough one, with the hose pipe ban in force throughout the summer. Gardens will dry out, roses will die and garden swimming pools will stay empty.

In Thanet, unless someone from Southern Water can tell me otherwise, I predict that we could see standpipes in the streets if the drought continues. Something perhaps for both the local and county councils to think about perhaps and start taking measures to reassure the public one way or the other. Perhaps our different councillors, reading this webpage could cast a little light on the problem?

North Thanet`s MP, Roger Gale has this (Monday) evening condemned the involvement of the Prime Minister's wife, Cherie Booth, QC, in property issues relating to northern Cyprus.

Speaking at the House of Commons this evening following receipt of an answer to a written parliamentary question the MP said:

"The Downing Street position is inconsistent with the Foreign Office position.

It is simply not good enough for the Prime Minister's wife, acting in any "professional” capacity, to defend the interests of those exploiting stolen and occupied property in the northern part of the Island of Cyprus while the F&CO says, as they have:

"The Government warns British citizens of the risks of purchasing property in northern Cyprus that arise from the international community's non-recognition of the self-declared "Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, the property implications of any future settlement and the claims to ownership of Cypriots displaced in 1974.

We further warn British citizens that they may face legal proceedings in the Cypriot courts and elsewhere in the EU including the UK.". (Douglas Alexander, Minister).

I have spent parliamentary years seeking to secure the restoration of a home stolen from my constituent, George Gerolemou, now 93 years old, and I think that I am entitled to object to the signal being sent out from one corner of Downing Street in conflict with the "warning" issued by the Foreign Office.

The theory is that "Cherie Booth, QC" has nothing to do with government. The fact is that her involvement in another case allegedly funded by a former North London Turkish Cypriot Labour Councillor and seeking to defend the interests of British nationals who claim to "own" a villa built on land belonging to a Greek Cypriot refugee, is clearly designed to bestow legitimacy upon an illegal regime and upon the illegal development of the villas that are now smothering the northern part of the Island.

It is not surprising that the Cypriot community resident in the UK is spitting blood at the insensitivity, to say the least, shown by someone very close to the Prime Minister of this Country. Once again it would seem that venal self-interest is taking precedence over the legitimate rights of those who have had their properties illicitly taken from them."

Speaking before the response to the Parliamentary question at the Blessing of the Seas ceremony in Margate yesterday (Sunday, 8th January) Roger Gale had told representatives of the local and London Cypriot community:

"I am ashamed that those in high places in my country are seeking to represent the interests of those who have illegally acquired land and property in your Island. My constituent, George Gerolemou, and his compatriots,wish to return to their homes and, within the European Union, have a right so to do and it is those human rights that the United Kingdom, as a guarantor power, ought to be protecting".

A 20-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of attempted murder following a road traffic incident at around 3am on Saturday in The Broadway at Broadstairs.

The incident left an 18-year-old woman with serious injuries to her face, as well as a broken leg, pelvis, fingers, jaw and cheekbone. She is being treated in hospital where her condition is described as "serious".

Police say the man, aged 20, from Chestfield, was arrested in Canterbury later on Saturday morning. He has been bailed pending a Crown Prosecution Service decision to prosecute.

Detectives are appealing for anyone who witnessed the incident is asked to contact Det Sgt Claire Munday at Margate police station on 01843 222 053.

If you are having problems reading this new template or had problems with the earlier one, which I changed this morning, then please let me know. Naturally, I want to avoid having people struggle to view the content and if that’s you, please add a comment and let me know what the problem is. I think this new one is gentler on the eyes and still manages to show the photos at their best.

I see from the papers that the Grand Hotel in Brighton dumped all their old guest records from 1997 into a skip outside the hotel. These reportedly included the personal address and financial information, such as credit card details of some very important people who had stayed there over the last decade.

This kind of foolishness underlines how important it is to take every effort to protect your personal information against the increasing risk of identity theft.

According to CIFAS - the UK's fraud prevention service - 120,000 people are affected by identity theft in the UK each year, while a Cabinet Office study carried out in 2002 estimated that crime facilitated by identity fraud cost Britain £1.3bn a year. This remains the most recent research on the problem, though in reality the figure could be much higher. The Home Office has put together a steering committee to tackle the issue. The committee's website, www.identity-theft.org.uk, offers detailed advice on protection from ID theft.

The Times newspaper reveals what most of us suspect already, that there is what the scientists would call and “operant connection” between playing violent video games and the potential for violent behaviour.

These computer games trigger a mechanism in the brain that makes people more likely to behave aggressively, research suggests.

A study of the effects of popular games such as Doom, Mortal Kombat and Grand Theft Auto, which involve brutal killings, high-powered weaponry and street crime, indicates that avid users become desensitised to shocking acts of aggression. Psychologists found that this brain alteration, in turn, appeared to prime regular users of such games to act more violently.

Some critics remain unconvinced by the findings, however. Jonathan Freedman, Professor of Psychology at the University of Toronto, who has prepared several government reports on media and games violence, said that all people “habituate” to any kind of stimulus. “All we are really getting is de-sensitisation to images,” he said. “There’s no way to show that this relates to real-life aggression.”

Fancy yourself as a journalist or a digital photographer? In 2006 I’m really hoping for more involvement from our readers and so if you have a story and perhaps a camera too, don’t be shy in coming forward and sending it along to me at Thanet Life. I’ll edit whatever you send, so don’t be intimidated by worries over grammar or punctuation. (Cos I make mistakes all the time either that or MS Word second guesses me and autocorrects my spelling with dire results.)

Involvement is very much the name of the game and so if you see or hear of anything interesting let me know, after all, I bump into lots of stories each week and with seventy thousand or so adults living in Thanet, there must be a great deal more happening in the towns than I can possibly write about on my own.

Cllr. Clive Hart writes:

“Please find attached two photographs that I hope will explain why I feel so strongly that not enough thought has gone in to the new directional signage on Margate seafront.”

“The two signs that have been erected are both so large that they need to be mounted on a form of small scaffolding rather than a pole. They also straddle the promenade on our famous golden mile where local people and visitors alike used to enjoy unrestricted views of our beloved ‘Turner’ sunsets and the clock-tower part of the seafront is also a conservation area.”

“Regeneration is not just a matter of investing money, it’s about changing attitudes and I feel these signs reflect a ‘that’ll do for Margate’ attitude from some at KCC which has to change dramatically if we are truly going to regenerate our town.”

“I wrote to Mr. Ferrin, the KCC cabinet member for Highways explaining these feelings before Christmas but to date I have had no reply.”

I sincerely hope something can be done about this matter before the summer season. Our local traders are suffering badly with all the problems over the Dreamland site and the delays with the Turner Contemporary.

A busier than expected afternoon photographically speaking.

I decided to go and do some instrument flying work in the nasty thick grey stuff, four thousand feet over Dover and having tracked the beacon towards the harbour I then followed the Manston radio beacon on the return leg in a descent that brought me back into daylight at two thousand feet over the airport. One forgets that practising on the Microsoft Flight Simulator doesn’t quite reproduce the rushing sound when a gentle 500 feet per minute descent through the cloud, quite suddenly increases to an alarming 1000 FPM with a sudden cold windshear.

Tracking back home to land along the coast I spotted an accident, not long after it had happened on Sea Road in Westgate, dropped in to take some photos and then landed. On the way back into Westgate on the A28, I found this closed in the opposite direction between the St Nicholas roundabout and the petrol station. Another accident, this time apparently a woman who had lost control after reportedly hitting something on the road.

Apparently two people from the Sea Road accident were also taken to hospital.

The Emergency Services had a tough time being in two places at once and acted with great efficiency. I’ve uploaded all my photographs to the library here for them, insurers, owners and even the local paper to view and download if they wish to. (Ed - Thanks for pointing out it was the A28 and not the 299)

My dog has become a local internet celebrity. Walking her on the beach this morning, a gentleman approached me and asked if this was the “Dog on the Internet?”



Bang to rights I guess with her red doggie coat on and a chance for a quick chat about the website which was described as “Excellent”, so thank you sir.

One suggestion I have for our local beach café owners for next season is to install a wireless hotspot. This isn’t terribly expensive, it’s easy to achieve and would provide an internet café service to visitors. Charging people a nominal fee of say a £1.00 an hour to use it might recoup the costs very quickly. BT hate this kind of thing I know but it’s perfectly legal, sharing the connection and for me at least, would provide a great excuse in the summer to wander down to the beach at lunchtime, open my laptop and order a late English Breakfast and a coffee while still carrying-on with my email. Now if the cafes added a cheap web cam, pointing out of the window, then I could link to these through Thanet Life and everyone would be able to see how crowded the beach was, where the tide was and if any tables were free!

This will happen one day, I’m sure; it’s only a question of when. After all, if I can do this kind of thing from a hotel café in Jordan there’s no reason why it can’t be done in Thanet too.

One of our comment threads yesterday talked of Mussolini making the trains run on time and there’s something to be said for dictatorships, as long as they remain short, although the fine line between Parliamentary dictatorship and democracy has become increasingly muddy since 1997. As I’m involved with some next generation technology and policy development work for a couple of very big companies, given a little money and a free hand, I’m sure I could do some very interesting things for us here.

Last month I have to confess I failed miserably in an attempt to raise £100,000 - £250,000 from one of my clients to do just this. At a meeting in London, I was told the reason was very simple and that’s because the North of England is seen as having a greater need than the “Wealthy South.” Even though it was conceded that Thanet can’t be judged this way I was told that if I offered the same proposal for a local council area around, let’s say Tyne & Wear, raising the money wouldn’t be a huge problem but sadly, Thanet didn’t dovetail nicely with both the Deputy PM’s priorities and the PR potential that would accompany such a grant from a company as well-known as the one I was speaking to.

I haven’t given up yet!

I hope you like the new background? With so many people now visiting the website I decided that it needed a facelift and a little more effort put into its design to make it look a little more polished than the very simple template I used when it started. I think it makes the photographs stand out much more clearly but if you have problems with it please let me know, it’s still in “beta” test. The comment counter will be back on once I have worked out why it has turned off

It appears that the great Christmas spending frenzy has left the population in debt to the tune of £1.15 trillion and in there somewhere, you can count the pair of jeans I bought in the Matalan sale last week for the extravagant sum of £12.00.

According to the Guardian two million people who used credit cards to buy presents are still paying off their 2004 Christmas bill and three million people have personal loans and credit cards with outstanding debts of more than £10,000. The number of individuals going bust, according to the latest Department of Trade and Industry figures, is up 46% on a year ago.

Turn on the television and any daytime Sky channel is running a constant stream of adverts offering to pay off your debts with “Even a little left over for that special purchase.” Are they mad? How can someone place all their debts in a single consolidation loan and then have something to spare. There is nothing, it’s all debt, lower interest over a longer term equals greater debt and I watched with interest Rene Carayol’s programme last week, where he is attempting to coach a couple to pay off their mortgage in just two years.

David Limbert in the Guardian points out that few people are even aware of the existence of credit unions, which can be a much cheaper alternative than falling into the hands of those same "consolidation" loan merchants and other sharks you see on television.

These are financial co-operatives, owned and controlled by their members and offer savings and better value loans, are local and are managed ethically. They specialize in picking up those who have fallen between the financial cracks or are simply on low incomes. For more information on credit unions, visit the Association of British Credit Unions website - http:www.abcul.org

Ramsgate is set to become a "millionaires’ playground", according to Kent on Saturday, which in turn reports an article in Country Life Magazine, which places Ramsgate just after Kensington & Chelsea in the list of most desirable postcodes.

After reading this I had to take a stiff drink to dull the pain in my jaw after it had bounced off the desk in front of me.

Obviously, some areas of Ramsgate are more desirable, the Marina, than others but if Country Life says so it must be true, the new Nice of the South East and so Thanet Council best make hasty plans to float the Turner Contemporary towards the East Cliff to anticipate the new Bohemian cultural demand for art and Cappuccino which will surely follow this revelation.

Reading through David Oliver’s book, “Late Medieval Thanet & The Cinque Ports”, one can’t avoid being struck by the changes that have take place on the isle of “Tenet”, a once heavily fortified and wooded place, even up to the 1700s, which played it’s part in fighting the French during the 100 Years War and even suffered raids in return.

A tough place to live from the records, it’s interesting to note that in 1381, all the seamen in Margate were arrested on suspicion of aiding the Peasants Revolt, which illustrates that the inhabitants of the island were regarded as a troublesome independent-minded lot, living in one of the most attractive and easily reached targets of opportunity for pirates on the English coast.




Printed by the Martell Press in Ramsgate, it’s a fascinating read for anyone interested in our local history. The two illustrations here are the Norman tower at Minster Abbey and the 1414 map of the island by Thomas of Elmham, which is also in the photo archive of old pictures of Thanet as a larger JPEG file for download.

What is the future of Dreamland? There’s a council meeting to discuss this coming up and the Margate Town Centre Regeneration Company Ltd, otherwise known as MTRCL are planning a public consultation exercise to discover what residents want to do with the plot.

It’s no secret what the developers would like to do, given the sheer size of the area involved and it’s the presence of the scenic railway, bravely defying the risk from Swan Vesta for years, which has helped keep it as it is at present.

The latest plan is to provide a “Leisure destination for Margate” to be used for a “Mix of traditional and innovative uses”, whatever that may mean in practise. We’ve even had the suggestion of it becoming a “World class tennis centre” but knowing a little about the subject, I rather think that’s the most ludicrous pipe dream of all.

What I believe we need is an all-year water park on a larger scale than that of Aqualud in Le Touquet, with amusements and family friendly restaurants, shops and entertainment around the outside. This would be a guaranteed money spinner for Margate and is really in the “no-brainer” category if it is to exist as a competitive modern resort. A public consultation exercise simply draws out and already tedious and long-term problem and avoids the need to make a decision, something that we are rather good at here in Thanet.

A few years ago I was fortunate enough to meet the ruler of Dubai over dinner, with former Australian Prime Minister, Paul Keating. (ironically, I was standing in for Patricia Hewitt). We all know about the success of Dubai as a dazzling tourist destination but this is mostly down to Sheikh Mohammed’s ability to get things done and cut through the red tape. If a project looks good and has a strong commercial case that attracts benefits to Dubai, then he’ll kick the proverbial backside of anyone who stands in the way and that I suggest, is what we need, in a more democratic sense perhaps, here in Thanet, if we are going to move forward with a little more imagination and commercial pragmatism than presently exists on our own little island.

I see that the odds have now shortened considerably on young David Miliband taking over from the President when he finally leaves No10.

I suggested this in one of my weblogs a very long time ago and with the Conservatives under a new leader, David Cameron, attracting a record number of new members, I suspect the writing may be on the wall for Gordon Brown.

The temptation to walk down to Ladbrokes and lay a large bet on the succession with Miliband at 9:1 odds is very strong and I don’t normally bet.

When the time comes for Tony Blair to go and enjoy his “retirement”, Labour, like the LibDems could find itself in a leadership dilemma. In my own opinion Gordon Brown has passed his sell by date and Cameron is right, he’s an eighties politician, old, new Labour who we all know will tax us shamelessly but less covertly, if he has the chance. Anyway, should Labour really put its future in the hands of a man who can’t stop biting his nails into middle age or should it choose another Tony clone instead, one with the impeccable socialist credentials of the Milibands?

I did get up in the air after all, just in time for the cloud to descend to seven hundred feet over North Foreland. But passing over Broadstairs I noticed how truly enormous the site is that lies behind Tesco and runs straight up to the Christchurch Campus.

I will go and take some photos of this particular area once the weather improves again but you could lose a small town in the blank muddy space that is now prepared for building. What impact this will have on local roads I can only guess but in the space of eighteen months, what was a modest shopping centre at Westwood Cross has now become a giant whale which is busily swallowing the centre of Thanet.

For all the benefit and convenience of the shops that this brings to local residents, me among them I’m not sure that an expansion of this size and at this speed will really serve the best interests of the population when the infrastructure requirements and concerns are lagging so far behind the development.

I’m looking at the actual and forecast weather this morning and debating whether to pop across to Rochester to pick up fuel but I think I’ll pass. It’s quite flyable but it’s damp and cold and there’s a 30 per cent chance of snow across the western side of Kent this morning and another 30 per cent chance that I’ll flatten my battery trying to start an engine with cold oil. Here in Thanet we are more likely to get rain instead. If you look out of the window at the towering cumulus clouds, you’ll see what I mean The aircraft on the left is one I used to own before I became sensible and I miss it sometimes.

I see there’s a fuss in the Guardian newspaper and elsewhere over the size of the police DNA database and that a particular racial group appear to be over-represented. Perhaps it would instead be fairer if we all contributed a DNA sample in the interests of supporting law and order. After all, the police have reportedly caught 30,000 criminals through the simple expedient of matching-up their DNA against a hair, blood or any other tiny “biological” left at the scene of the crime and then simply gone looking for the owner at his or her last known address. Very CSI Miami..!

As the Register reports, "Home Office propaganda might lead the unwary to believe that DNA is the magic pixie dust that will solve all crime, but if you think about it, it quite obviously ain't so. People leak DNA wherever they go, which is an advantage for the investigator in the sense that it's extremely difficult for a criminal to be absolutely certain they didn't leave a trail, but a disadvantage because of the amount of leaked DNA 'noise' the world is full of. Burglars and car thieves will tend to leave less DNA at the scene than the usual inhabitants, and as their awareness of DNA matching climbs, they'll leave less still, because they'll be more careful. They will also be more likely to leave false trails (e.g., as police have been beginning to note, random cigarette butts in stolen cars), or to plant evidence (note that it's a lot easier to plant DNA than fingerprints). "

While I worry about the introduction of ID cards and other Home Office measures that appear to threaten our freedoms in a democratic society, I don’t see a DNA database as such a threat, if and it’s a very big “If” the information is used and shared properly and responsibly. However, when you think that the DVLA is quite prepared to sell your address, from your number plate to private parking and often “cowboy” clamping companies, there is that niggling worry that one can’t trust an organisation as large and inefficient as government or perhaps even the police, to use a national DNA database only for the purpose for which it was intended.

In the news yesterday is the story of a Kent builder who claims he was called racist by Jobcentre staff, after his advert for a carpenter said the person must be able to speak and read English!

Apparently, the Job Centre wrote to him with a letter that said: “You informed the contact centre you were not willing to employ anyone who did not speak English.

"Where employers discriminate against job applicants on the basis of race, they may be in breach of the Race Relations Act."

Even the most liberal employers among us must be dismayed to think that it is now considered “racist”, to require a potential employee to speak and write the English language as a necessary part of a job specification. Proof positive that the lunatics have been handed the keys to the asylum we now share with everyone else.

Barry Stewart has written in to let me know of his excellent website “Underground Kent.”

The site is one that examines underground structures, Napoleonic, WWII and Cold War fortifications in Kent and is run by a group of people who are interested in underground exploration. Definitely worth a visit for those of you with local historical interests.

ThanetLife came to my rescue this morning, when walking the dog on the beach, I found a very sick Great Crested Grebe. Rather than leave the bird on the sands, I bought it home, avoiding the attention of its beak and glad to be wearing gloves.

On the links column at the side of this web page I have some emergency numbers and one I have put up is the number for injured birds, so I rang it and a lady called Janet asked me to take the bird to the animal hospital in Margate, which I did, assisted by my daughter Charlotte.

The bird is now in safe hands but I did rather wonder about bird flu, however, the Grebe did not’t look Chinese but you never can tell!

ED: Janet Smith, who lives in Cliftonville is the kind lady who takes-in injured birds. She has a friend who is a veterinary nurse in Whitstable and between them they do what they can for all kinds of injured wildlife. Janet, whose number you will find in the "links" section, tells me that the Grebe is very ill and may not survive and that if readers do find an injured or sick animal or bird, they should immediately take it to the Animal Hospital in Margate and they in turn will hand it over to Janet for care.

She's a wonderful lady and deserve real thanks and recognition for what she does.

He seems a bit old to be tagging the promenade with graffiti I though but at least his boxer dog appears to appreciate his efforts. If the slogan “Boodah Rules” pops up anywhere else in Westgate then we know who to ask.

Looking back for a moment at impact of alcohol and binge-drinking on the New Year celebrations which overwhelmed the London Ambulance Service I wonder if government should simply raise the level of taxation on drinks over certain alcohol content and reduce it on those that are low or alcohol free. Thus the popular “Extra Strong” brews that lie in tall stacks along our 24*7 local supermarket shelves might be priced out of the range, of some of the same people that I see still drinking on trains or along the streets in the mornings. Perhaps this sounds like prohibition but if my favourite whiskey was priced-up and the result led to less binge drinking among the young that would be a price I’d be prepared to pay.

Put another way, with the shocking figures out on the number of children that now have to be treated in hospital for alcohol abuse, government needs to do something urgently and stop mumbling its discredited mantra on the arrival of responsible drinking in a twenty-four hour café society. This isn’t France or Spain and British have always had an endemic problem with the over consumption of Beer or Gin, all the way back to the Middle Ages.

North Thanet`s MP, Roger Gale, has today (Monday 19th December) tabled a written parliamentary question challenging this government’s position in relation to stolen land in Cyprus.

The question, for answer on the day the House returns after the Christmas recess (9th January 2006) asks the Foreign Office to re-affirm the attitude of the British Government towards the purchase and development, by British citizens, of stolen land located in the northern (occupied) part of Cyprus.

The question follows reports that the Prime Minister`s wife, Cherie Booth, QC. has taken a brief to defend the human rights of two British subjects who have acquired property built on land stolen by the occupying force following the 1974 Turkish invasion of Cyprus.

Gale, who is Conservative Vice-Chairman of the All Party Friends of Cyprus Group, says:

"For twenty two years in the House of Commons I have been working to secure the return, to my constituent George Gerolemou, of his villa in the Northern part of the Island.  George Gerolemou, who is now nearly 94 years old, built his home a couple of years before the invasion and spent just two summers there with his wife, now deceased.

We have recently visited the property, now illegally occupied buy a Turkish family, and found that the new "owners" have added a swimming pool to George`s garden!

He does not have many summers left to him and we want his property back.  These are the human rights that the British Government, and those with close connections to it, should be defending - not the interests of those who have knowingly or otherwise invested in property that was not for sale.

It seems as though the F&CO is giving one advice on its website while tacitly recognizing the illegal regime and its works in the occupied North and very many Cypriot nationals, now resident and working in the United Kingdom, feel very strongly, as I do representing them,  that this unacceptable."

What was the very successful EUJet Thanet Airshow is set to return in 2006 as. Well, the Kent Air Show. It will take place at Palm Bay on 17th and 18th June and is set to become one of the highlights of the event calendar.

Let’s hope the weather then is as good as it was in 2005, which made it a great day out for all who attended.

Happy New Year everyone and already my first resolution is in full swing, to lose the surprise increase in weight that appeared over the last two weeks. For this purpose I’ve invented the new coffee, salad and sardines diet which I predict will soon take the place of Dr Atkins diet of last year. Whether it actually works or not is another matter!

Top stories I’ve noticed from today’s New Year Sunday papers today are:

How the RAF has 40 air marshals for 36 squadrons. Much the same for the Army and the Navy too and how our armed forces have become a paper-pushing disaster zone that let down the men in the front line.

Why bits fall-off British Airways passenger jets because the engineers can’t be bothered to screw the hatches back on.

99.99 per cent of the population - can only look forward to a year of financial belt-tightening and uncertainty. The economic omens for 2006 are more depressing than at the start of any year so far this century.

As we manufacture less at home but still want the glitter and glamour of consumerism, we have taken to debt as the natural way to finance our spending addiction. Total borrowing in Britain topped £1 trillion last year, just a bit under £5,000 for every man, woman and child in the country.

How to find a shopbot or shopping robots are special websites for finding the cheapest prices. The web is huge; so many people habitually nip straight to a familiar retailer such as Amazon or E-buyer to seek what’s wanted.

Instead head to a shopbot, tell it what’s required, click on compare prices and it searches e-retailers to find the cheapest with and without delivery costs.

In a world where Ferraris are two a penny, your professional footballer needs to go that little bit further to rise above the crowd. So what does Michael Owen do? He spends £2 million on a new helicopter. He hasn’t got a license yet but he plans to learn and on a twin-engined Eurocopter that could take a couple of years at least! I assume he’s up to the written pilot exams too?

In fact that’s cleverer than you might think because he’ll get the lot back against his considerable tax bill if he uses it for business!

The prospect of a further increase in British gas bills grew last night as Ukraine and Russia failed to reach agreement over a crucial gas pricing deal. The bitter energy dispute between the two countries threatens supplies into the European Union, with repercussions for the amount that would reach the UK.

Britain does not receive direct supplies from Russia, but 25 per cent of the EU's supplies comes from the Ukraine. If there is a drop in the supply to Europe, this would mean less gas being pumped through the “interconnector”, the pipeline that links the UK with the continent