All Blogged Up

Ahoy! (You have to remember that I've spent at least some of the past four weeks on various floating gin palaces moored off the Cote d'Azur).

I've had a chance to catch up with the local blogging scene now, and despite Biggles bailing out somewhere over Westgate, things appear to be in pretty good shape. I'm particularly taken with the arrival on the blogging scene of Eastcliff Thorburn, a sort of anti-me, and jolly amusing too, albeit in a rather rough and ready way.

And there are a couple of embryonic new political blogs - The Thanetonian and Observing Thanet - along with the old favourites like Arts and Elbows, Ramsgate Tourettes, Nethercourt Notes, Snailspace, Thanet Eye, The Angina Monologues (perhaps he should change to The Angina Monopods, given his recent operation), not forgetting Man Eating Sausage in Wenceslas Square.

And good to see our local car-crushing councillor Dave Green back in harness, after receiving what appears to have been a nasty ticking-off from one of the council's po-faced apparatchiks.

Shame about Dr Biggles, though. I kind of liked the fellow, even though he showed a serious sense of humour failure over that Steaming Great Twat business. And, of course, he and I never saw eye-to-eye politically.

But there's no doubt he has a lot to thank me for. Even his exit speech sounded familiar:

Anyway and to change the subject, as the magic 200,000 mark approaches, I’ve decided that I’ll shut-up shop here once it passes. I’m not ruling out a comeback but when I started this weblog there was nothing else and now we have a vibrant and frequently bizarre community of ‘Bloggers’ for you to choose from. Thanet Life has served it’s purpose, which was to encourage local debate and deliver a personal slant on local news stories but these days it’s taking too much of my time and I’m neglecting my other columns elsewhere.

So the local paper and several local ‘Bloggers’ can soon find something and someone else more interesting to occupy their interests and as Winston Churchill said: “Everyone has his day and some days last longer than others."

Dr Biggles, September 2006.

Still, there's no such thing as bad publicity, and with over a million visits in the bag in just under five months, and lots of stale old cages rattled, it's been quite a success. A lot of you have started blogs during that time, and some of them are pretty funny. I've especially enjoyed Scottie's toons, Nethercourt's taciturn musings, Artyblartfast's arty blasts, and Tony Flaig's cows and stuff, and that boy Dusty's showing promise too.

Keep up the good work! Be seeing you.

Eastcliff Richard, May 2006

And anyway, he's still there, blogging away, so what was that all about? You can't get rid of him that easily! Blimey, that's another thing he's nicked off me!